


Heart of Gold

by thegingermidget



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Enemies to Lovers, Inspired by Yuri!!! on Ice, M/M, Mentions of Eating Disorder, POV Alternating, Sharing a Bed, ice au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2019-01-19
Packaged: 2019-09-22 08:09:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 25,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17056070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegingermidget/pseuds/thegingermidget
Summary: Armitage Hux is the best skater in the world, but he's coming to the end of his career. This next season is his last chance to prove himself, but what if there is nothing left for him to do?Ben Solo is an up and coming figure skater who just came in last at his debut Grand Prix final. He wants to be the best in the world and thinks that Coach Snoke is his best chance.Ben and Armitage come to realize that they might have to set aside their contentious relationship to get what they want.





	1. Chapter 1

The very least he could say for the night was that he had managed to find a bar without the throbbing techno music that seemed to plague the rest of the spots in the city. Helsinki had a surprising amount of nightlife, but Hux was not willing to partake.

After a gold place finish in today’s world championship, he should have been in a celebratory mood. This new piece of hardware gave him five consecutive world championships. He should be cracking open a bottle of champagne, taking shots, and dancing until dawn. He had just cemented his status as a figure skating legend.

Instead, he sat alone at a dimly lit bar. Not many tourists frequented this place, and not many locals either. Even the bartender was content to leave him alone to finish his drink; busy talking to a pouting girl down at the end of the bar. Hux couldn’t speak Finnish or Swedish, but he knew exactly what she was trying to say.

The other patrons in the bar kept to themselves; a couple nestled in their own booth, another figure down at the other end of the bar, a few girls waiting to use the restroom. 

Hux stared into the bottom of his glass. He wondered if in another drink or two he’d find an explanation for the foreboding sense of failure he was feeling or if he’d finally forget it. Either one seemed like an excellent option, so he signaled the bartender over once more when he realized his glass was now empty. 

He had resigned himself to a night alone. Maybe he’d be better off buying a bottle at the nearest convenience store and taking it back up to his hotel room. At least that way, the bartender could stop giving him those awful backward glances. After the next drink, he decided, that was exactly what he was going to do.

There was no sense in rushing through the drink in his hand though. He could stand the annoyed looks of the bartender and his friend for a few minutes at least.

However, in paying attention to the bartender and the drink in his hand, he had overlooked the other solitary patron seated at the bar, the one who had crossed the room in order to sit at the stool just beside him.

Hux was not in the mood for a drinking companion.

Being slightly too drunk to be certain of social etiquette, he chose to ignore the intrusion into his personal space rather than simply get up and leave. Perhaps it was too much to simply hope that they would take the hint.

He nearly choked on his next sip when the man started to speak.

“Hey, I saw you sitting over here and I just wanted to say congrats on the win today. Your free skate really blew me away.”

Figure skating as a sport had some level of popularity among certain groups of people, but Hux had never been recognized on the street by a fan before. In another mood, he might have been flattered by this unexpected praise and support.

Instead, half drunk and far too tired to be this far away from his hotel room, Hux was annoyed. 

“-And the length of your career? Most skaters can only dream of still competing at twenty-six-”

Hux knocked back the rest of his drink and stood up.

“Look, I can see that you’re a fan but if you could just take a selfie and leave I would really appreciate it.” He prided himself on being able to confidently string his words together three drinks in.

The man’s dark eyes widened. “A fan? Hux, I-” 

He sputtered for a moment longer than Hux’s attention span could hold out. After tossing a couple of bills on the counter and Hux started to make his exit. 

“You really don’t remember me?” The words made Hux pause and turn back to face him. For the first time, he actually got a good look at the man. 

He was tall and slim, with shaggy black hair and dark eyes to match. He was trying desperately to grow into his ears and his striking nose but was still a few years shy of being considered truly handsome. 

“I haven’t the faintest idea who you are.”

And with that, he turned and left. 

He had reached the corner of the block before realizing that, he did recognize the man from somewhere. There was no way to remember a name or a place, but there might have been something familiar hiding in those features. 

By the time he crossed the street and trekked further away from the bar and into the cold night, the man had been completely forgotten; replaced by the same looming feeling that retirement and the rest of his adult life were coming ever closer. 

His win today, or yesterday depending on what time of night it was, might have been his last major victory. Everything he did from now on could be his last. Announcers would talk about the length of his career and speculate on when he would retire, especially tomorrow as he stood on the podium for the medal ceremony. They would compare him to younger skaters and question whether his best seasons were now behind him. 

Then there was the reality of what he would do with himself once his skating career was over. Years and years stretched out before him, not like the blank canvas they once seemed to be but more like an endless dark void.

His performance today had been haunted by some of that fear. Luckily it had colored his performance nicely and brought him a higher score in presentation, but it could have easily brought him down. He had never let his anxieties affect him like that before. It could have been a disaster.

That fear had welled up over him as he’d finished the skate, nearly trembling. The cameras had taken it as exhaustion, but Brendol had seen it for what it was. The lecture afterward had been one for the ages.

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

¨Ben, get back here!¨ His father’s voice echoed down the hallway, but Ben was deaf to it. Once he’d escaped the cameras, he wanted to get as far away from the rink as possible.

Around the corner was the locker room. You needed an athlete’s pass to get in, hopefully, that would be enough to stop his father. He just needed to get there first.

Ben shouldered past other athletes and coaches, the hallway getting more and more congested as he got closer. 

“Ben!” It wasn’t his father’s voice this time. His cousin, Rey, called out to him as he left the locker room, ready for her own medal ceremony. The arm she reached out to him was covered in rhinestones and nylon. “Aren’t you going to watch me? What’s wrong?”

He struggled to get past the crowd of people blocking the locker room door, but Rey had already given his father time to catch up. 

Han Solo was out of breath and pissed. With one hand firmly attached to Ben’s shoulder, he said, “You’re coming with me, kid.” 

His father spared a congratulatory grin at Rey before yanking Ben into the nearest empty room.

At least the closed door was able to muffle the sound of the crowd outside.

Ben paced the room like a caged animal. Han was going to lecture him about his performance or his attitude or one of the ten other monologues he kept on hand for moments like this. They found themselves in a janitor’s closet that was thankfully roomy enough between the racks of cleaning supplies, the trash can, and the creaking water heater to keep them both at a distance.

“Would you sit down?” Han spoke in a growl that made him sound angry even when he wasn’t. The gray hair that made him look distinguished didn’t help either. He might have been intimidating to someone who didn’t know him the way Ben did. “Look I know you had a bad skate-”

Ben kicked at an empty bucket. It made more noise than he’d intended. “I’m not in the mood for a lecture.”

“And I’m not about to give one. Would you shut up and listen?” 

Ben hated the way his jaw now seemed to be glued shut at his father’s words. Must have been something he’d learned as a child. He leaned against a rack of cleaning supplies and tried to avoid meeting his father’s gaze.

“You had one bad skate. You finished 6th, but all in all, this doesn’t mean anything for you, Ben. You’ve got years to prove yourself to everyone out there. One bad competition doesn’t mean anything. You’ve-”

Ben was tired of being a child in his father’s eyes. 

“Is this where you tell me how hard I’ve worked and how much I’ve grown as a skater? This whole speech is word for word what Luke told me the season after I quit playing hockey for you. Were you listening in? Trying to get tips on how to be a better father? Well, it’s a little late to try out new material now.”

“Ben, I get it. You’re upset.”

“Upset?” Ben could almost laugh. “Of course I’m upset. I’ve been humiliated on an international scale. I fell on my face in front of the biggest names in the sport on the biggest stage of figure skating. So what if this is my debut Grand Prix? How is anyone going to take me seriously after that?”

Han started to say something before Ben cut him off again. He had taken a breath and knew what he needed to say.

“I can’t go on like this. Something has to change.”

Han looked and him, confused. It was easy to see that Ben’s whole demeanor had shifted. Ben hated being looked at like a ticking bomb. “With your training? I’m sure you and Luke can sort something out.”

“No,” he said. Only when his father narrowed his eyes did Ben realize he’d been a little too forceful. “That’s the problem.”

His voice had become much softer. “You and mom and Luke… you’ve been holding me back. I’ll never win gold if I don’t push myself and Luke doesn’t have any idea how to help me reach my full potential. I’m better than he ever was and he, just like the rest of you, is sad, old, and washed up.”

“Ben,” Han’s voice was somewhere between broken and furious.

“I’ve been contacted by a new coach. He’s seen what I can do and he has more to offer me than a shitty ‘better luck next time’ speech. He’s going to take my skating to the next level.”

Han was quiet for a moment. The water heater ticked off each second that followed. Ben could swear he knew what Han was going to say next and was readying his next assault.

“Whatever it is you think you need to do,” The words came slowly, carefully measured in the low voice that meant he was very serious. “Your mother and I... Luke and Rey, too, we’ll be there to support you.

There was a moment where he couldn’t meet Ben’s eyes. Maybe he was hurt or angry or uncomfortable. Looking down made him look like his eyes were closed in prayer. Han Solo was not a pious man. It was the sort of look he gave Leia when they fought. A kicked puppy look that made him seem sincere. There was no way he could have meant any of what he’d just said. So Ben went in for one last swipe.

“If you were listening you’d know that I don’t need your support. You all need me so much more than I need you. I don’t need any of you anymore.”

He pushed past his father easily, realizing the man had never been much of an obstacle to begin with. 

He left Han Solo there and he left the rink. The tide of people swarming to enter the rink flowed around him as he made his way out to the street. He seemed to be the only one leaving. It was easy enough to find a taxi ready to take him away.

Since he’d left his father, he’d kept his phone ready in one hand. When he sat down in the taxi, well on the way back to his hotel, he made his choice. He had done enough deliberating over whether or not to send the text. He didn’t need Han Solo, his mother, Luke, not even Rey. They were distractions on his path to greatness and he needed to cut them out to move forward. 

Yesterday had been an embarrassment, but it was also going to be the start of his new skating career.

Snoke replied immediately. If Ben spoke with him at the banquet tonight, they could surely begin preparations. He wanted to speak with Ben in person to prove that he was serious about the move. If all went well, they could begin to discuss plans for the offseason and training for his next competitions. The work would be rigorous, he assured Ben. Was he certain he could handle it? Surely it wasn’t too late for Ben to make amends.

No, Ben was ready for whatever Snoke had planned for him. He was ready to become the world’s best skater. 

Ben wished he could fly back to New York and to his apartment. The sooner he got out of Helsinki, the sooner he could start to live down this awful Grand Prix Final. As he laid out his suit on the hotel bed, he thought of his parents and Snoke, all of whom had advised him to go to the banquet tonight. 

He tightened the knot of his tie and bristled at the idea of mingling with other skaters and coaches, and at the idea of possibly seeing his parents at the banquet. There was still a possibility that his parents might have the audacity to show up despite what he had said to his father. Luke might have stayed away and respected his wishes if it weren’t for Rey, but there was little doubt that several family members would anxiously await his appearance there tonight. 

There was really no choice in the matter. He had to go to the banquet whether he liked it or not, or so he tried telling himself on the cab ride to the venue. It didn’t make him feel any better. 

Maybe, without Ben to let them in, his parents wouldn’t be allowed into the banquet. The prospect of being turned away wouldn’t stop them from trying, and he supposed Luke and Rey could easily get them passed the door. Apart from avoiding them all night, was he going to have to sit with them for the dinner? After everything Ben had said earlier, this was not going to be pretty.

The banquet hall shone in dimly lit gold. Everyone seemed to float by on champagne bubbles. Fellow competitors talked and laughed and filled the room with a pleasant, dull roar. Everyone’s anxieties about the biggest skating competition of the year had evaporated with the medal ceremonies today and now they were free to speak as friends instead of rivals.

No one had taken their seats yet. Ben realized he was being a wallflower on the side of the room and decided to go get a glass of champagne. He could at least try to look like he was doing something, even if he couldn’t pull off looking like he was having fun.

Few people came up to him to try to start a conversation. Ben thought it was due to how intimidating he looked, standing there with his arms crossed and a dark scowl stretched across his face. The dainty champagne glass almost ruined the look, but not so much so that anyone actually tried to go up and start talking to him.

One glass of champagne was followed by four more, and Ben was feeling marginally better about the banquet. He had yet to actually talk to anyone, but he smiled and said hello to people whose faces looked familiar. He’d uncrossed his arms and made his way to his table where he noticed neither of his parents had place cards. 

It appeared that the men’s figure skating finalists were to share a table to themselves. The ladies and pairs were nearby too. If Ben’s parents and coach were still able to get in they’d be seated out of reach.

Ben relaxed a little at the thought. He greeted Poe Dameron and Finn Boyega warmly as they sat down. He wasn’t too familiar with either of them but liked them well enough when they weren’t competitors on the ice.

The champagne must have been getting to him because he found himself making decent small talk with them and Mitaka Uno and Sol Rivas when they made their way to the table. 

“I’ll have to retire soon if you boys keep skating the way you did this season,” said Poe. He was joking about retirement but the compliment felt sincere. “You’re starting to make me feel old.”

Sol Rivas, who wasn’t as well known for socializing with the other skaters, cleared his throat. “Well, since you mentioned it, I am retiring this season. I definitely saw that I’m too old for all of this.”

Words of sympathy and congratulations went up around the table. It was noble really, to bow out of skating while you could rather than to push past your prime into disappointment or to be forced out of the arena by injury. Poe patted him on the back.

The mood at the table was slightly dampened by Rivas’ announcement though. Retirement was not a favorite topic among young athletes, whose dreams loom so large.

Finn was the one who finally managed to change the subject.

“Well, congratulations, Riva. Actually, I have some news too,” he said. “Nothing as life-changing as all that, but I’ve decided to leave my coach.”

Ben’s ears perked up at that. Finn had trained under Snoke for the last two years. He had almost forgotten his real motivation for coming here tonight. He was here to change his destiny.

“Why are you leaving Snoke?” Ben asked with too much intensity. He hadn’t done much talking so far tonight. He was better at smiling and nodding when he remembered to, but otherwise was not paying much attention to the conversation.

Finn grimaced. “I don’t want to bad mouth the guy-”

“He worked you to the bone. It wasn’t good for you, you said it yourself.” Poe jumped to his friend’s aid. 

“I know, but sometimes I wonder whether I should have just stuck with it-”

Poe scoffed. “I guess you didn’t hear yourself when you told me about how he was practically starving you or when he scheduled you for three workouts a day and you collapsed or-”

“Poe,” said Finn, gently. Ben was surprised that it only took one word from Finn to get Poe to shut his mouth. 

Poe’s face remained defiant. “I’m not going to let you fall for his brainwashing.”

“But he is a great coach. One of the best,” insisted Ben.

Finn and Poe were arguing off to their side of the table and didn’t appear to hear Ben at all. Mitaka hardly looked up from his phone but said, “Well, everyone says he’s the best, so I guess it must be true.” That was good enough for Ben.

He looked around the ballroom to try and find Snoke. At this point, almost everyone had finished dinner and a few people were milling around. Two pairs skating couples had made their way onto the dance floor and were trying to get others to join them. He found Snoke’s bald, scarred head easily, but he hadn’t gotten up from his table yet. Maybe now wasn’t the best time to corner him.

Ben tried to keep Snoke in sight while he pretended to pay attention to the other skaters. If he had done a bad job of feigning interest before, he was fooling no one now. 

All he had to do was find the right moment to talk to him. Everything was already set in motion, he just needed to seal the deal. All of his frustration with his father and family was about to be put behind him.

“Ben… Ben!” Poe called him back to attention. He took his eyes away from Snoke for the first time in minutes. “Are you okay, man? I know we’re pretty boring, but your head’s been in another solar system all night. Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Ben stood up. “I’m going to go to the bathroom.”

He was desperate to get away from the five of them. He had no space left in his head for small talk. His eyes scanned the room for Snoke again, but now people were getting up and moving around. Ben was tall but still found it hard to see through the shifting crowds of people.

At last, Ben’s eyes found him across the room and he was shocked to see who was with him. He found Snoke only when his eyes caught a glimpse of Armitage Hux’s red hair. The same Armitage Hux who had arrived late and had failed to join his fellow skaters for dinner.

Ben started moving without even being fully aware of it. He needed to talk to Snoke now. That slimy weasel wasn’t about to take away his chance at becoming the best in the world, not with that sparkling smile and teasing eyes. 

There was nothing he could hold against Armitage as a person or a competitor. He was older by a few years and had made a name for himself long before Ben appeared on the scene. The media found him personable enough, but he was always cold to his fellow skaters. Ben had looked up to him for what felt like forever.

All of that admiration vanished when he saw Armitage Hux flashing a rare grin at Ben’s soon-to-be coach. Armitage Hux never made small talk. He had no one he was close to in skating and that wasn’t about to change anytime soon. No, Armitage wanted something from Snoke and Ben had a pretty good guess as to what that might be.

They were secluded as far as possible from the dance floor. Armitage had a drink in one hand that he waved like a prop but hadn't so much as sipped yet. He was all charm and smiles, a person that Ben had never met before.

"Coach Snoke," started Ben as he approached. Both men paused to look at him. 

"Ah, Ben, and I'm sure you know Hux here," said Snoke with a joviality that was not shared by either Armitage or Ben. Hux's smile cooled when he saw Ben, but not so much that anyone but Ben noticed.

"Sure," said Ben, trying not to give Hux the time of day. "Coach, I wanted to talk to you about what we discussed earlier today."

Snoke took a long sip of his own glass of champagne. "Yes, I was just talking to Hux here about the same thing."

Ben was sure that the entire room could hear the rage boiling up inside of him. His worst fear had been realized. Nothing about what they had texted about was set in stone. Of course, Snoke would rather coach a world champion than someone who had face-planted at the Grand Prix Final and finished last.

Perhaps Ben's shock, confusion, and anger were just as obvious as Ben thought. Snoke gave him a greasy smile and patted him on the back. "Come now, boy. No need to look so put out. I haven't said yes to either of you yet. As it happens, I have an idea." He gave them both a once over. "There's this friend of mine in Japan who is running an ice show and the skater in his finale just pulled out. She's getting married," Snoke rolled his eyes as though the idea was patently ridiculous. "Anyway, he was about to cut his losses, but now I see a way that we all might get something out of this."

He looked back and forth between the two of them to see if they had caught onto his grand plan yet. It was very clear that Ben hadn't, while Hux's face was unreadable. 

"If you're amenable, I will fly the two of you out to Japan tomorrow morning and the two of you will compete in the finale of the ice show."

"Compete..." Ben wasn't sure he fully understood.

"Use your exhibition performances and the better skater will become my student. The audience can decide the winner."

Both of them were silent for a moment. Ben accepted first. If this was his last chance, he was going to take it. For a moment, he thought Armitage was going to refuse. Maybe the idea of a skate off for the crowd's amusement was too far beneath him. It surprised Ben immensely when he accepted the challenge. Maybe he thought defeating Ben would be easy.

He wasn’t going to let this go without a fight.


	2. Chapter 2

The impromptu trip to Japan was actually great news for Ben. It meant he didn’t have to fly back home with the rest of his family. There was a chance he might be able to avoid them for the next few months.

The only thing that concerned him now was flying to Japan sitting next to Armitage Hux. Armitage Hux, the skating legend and Ben’s idol. They had met at a summer training camp almost a decade ago, but Hux didn’t appear to remember any of that or perhaps he didn’t care. Maybe the man he had always looked up to was cold and self-centered. Ben thought he could learn to live with that, but he wasn’t likely to get over it by the time they were trapped on a plane for nine hours.

It still came as a shock to see Armitage Hux sitting in the window seat next to where he was meant to sit. The other man hardly looked up when he sat down. He had earbuds in and was reading a book, trying close himself off to the rest of the world. Fine, Ben could take being ignored. Maybe it would make the whole trip easier.

Ben was not a fan of long flights. Few people are, but in figure skating, he had to endure them more than most. You were forced to sit for hours on end which he absolutely hated, it wasn’t always practical to spring for first class, and there was always some baby who was going to cry for the entirety of the trip. Your best bet was to sleep through most of it, but even with experience, Ben had never found that to be easy.

He couldn’t seem to keep his eyes away from Hux. The man was smaller, more slight of build in person than he ever appeared on the ice. His eyelashes were soft blond and his cheeks had a light pink flush that his faded freckles. Thankfully, Armitage’s eyes were steadfastly directed downwards towards his book or out the window, until which time he closed his eyes to fall asleep. 

It didn’t take long for Ben to grow extremely bored. His usual preparation for long flights had been forgone in the short notice and rather than feeling tired, Ben was completely wired. He got up to stretch twice in two hours and knew he was starting to annoy the people sitting around him. 

He was so close to Armitage but was unable say anything to him. Then again, what did you say to your hero? Your hero whose leg was touching yours, whose head kept dipping ever closer to your shoulder, whose red hair you might have been able to touch if it wouldn’t be mortifying to be caught doing it. 

His legs were too long for the seat and he couldn’t seem to find a comfortable way to sit. He’d ended up kicking the seat ahead of him more than once and was not surprised to see the woman ahead of him turn around to give him a death glare. By the third hour, he felt like everyone was staring at him.

He accidentally hit Armitage on his way back from the bathroom for the second time. Armitage groaned and his eyes flickered open.

“Wha- Watch it,” Armitage was groggy for a moment, before sharpening once again. He pulled out his earbuds for the first time all flight.

“Sorry,” mumbled Ben as he sat back down.

Hux snorted, put his earbuds back in and leaned back to try to go to sleep again. This time though, he wasn’t able to manage it. He growled and pulled the earbuds out again. He massaged the bridge of his nose and sighed. 

“Couldn’t fall back to sleep?” asked Ben.

“No thanks to you,” He leaned back against the seat again. “God I hate these flights. How long is this going to take again?”

“Nine hours.”

“Shit,” said Armitage. Ben was delighted by the sound of it. A mother across the aisle gave them a dirty look. Armitage caught it over Ben’s shoulder and forced down a laugh.

“I should be exhausted,” said Armitage.

Ben wasn’t sure why Armitage was talking to him. They were competitors, weren’t they? At least, that was how he’d treated Ben for the short time he’d known him personally.

“Oh yeah? Had a wild night of celebrating? It looked like it was going pretty well when I saw you.” 

Ben had seen Armitage two nights ago, the day he won the Grand Prix Final, alone in a bar and well on his way to drunk. He hadn’t recognized Ben at all when he’d approached and it had hurt his ego considerably. The fact that Armitage may have been truly plastered didn’t made him feel better.

Armitage started searching through his carry on for something. “Mmm, well I don’t remember much of it so I suppose it did its job.”

“Yeah,” Ben tried not to let Hux’s selective amnesia irritate him. When Hux made no attempt to say anything else, Ben soldiered on. “I didn’t do too much celebrating that night. I spent most of it trying to find a quiet bar to drink alone in.” 

“What were you trying to forget?”

This unexpected conversation kept finding ways to surprise him. “I guess the part of the free skate where I fell on my face and the part where I came in last and… almost everything about it.”

“You can’t forget your failures, they make you who you are.”

“Are you calling me a failure? And who are you to talk about failures, anyway? You- your…” His tongue was tied in the face of everything that was wrong with what Armitage had just said. You have never failed at anything. You're a legend to everyone who’s ever seen you skate. You have no failures to define you.

“If you had listened to the words that had come out of my mouth before jumping to the worst conclusion, you’d realize I wasn’t trying to insult you, idiot,” he muttered the last under his breath. “And you don’t know anything about me. God, I was just trying to help.”

Ben felt his face turning red. He didn’t want to talk about this. As much as he was glad for the chance to finally speak face to face with Armitage, he would almost rather not say another word for the rest of the flight.

For a moment, Ben thought he would do just that: keep his mouth shut, find something to watch for a few hours, and ignore the skating legend seated next to him. Armitage was turned away from him in his seat. It would be too easy to just leave this be. 

So easy, that Ben found himself unable to do it. 

“I’m sorry,” he said. “These past few days have been a nightmare. Another crack about my lack of talent seemed far more likely than actual advice.”

Ben wasn’t sure that would be enough to get Armitage to speak to him again, but he couldn’t keep a smile off of his face when he did.

“Sounds like you need better people in your corner.”

“And I’m headed to Japan to find some,” Ben said. Armitage nodded and it seemed like the conversation was going to die once more. Now that Ben had gotten on Armitage’s good side, he hated to pass up the opportunity to talk to his hero. “What about you?”

Now it was Armitage’s turn to study Ben. Ben couldn’t say for sure what Armitage was looking for, some sign that he could trust Ben or perhaps a sign that telling Ben anything wouldn’t do him any harm. 

At last though, Armitage made up his mind. “I want Snoke to be my coach. I only have a few years left if I’m lucky and I’m through with my father.”

“But he’s been your coach for years!” A part of Ben’s inner fanboy leaped out for a moment, winning out against Ben’s best attempts to keep it in.

“And I’ve decided that there’s nothing more I can learn from him. It’s nothing personal.” After a second thought, Armitage leaned in conspiratorially. “Though if I’m honest, I’ve hated him for years.”

“Guess we have that in common then,” Ben muttered. He filed away the bit of information about Hux hating his father for consideration at a later date. The part of himself that had been obsessed with Armitage for years had to know how long that had been going on. Since his senior debut? Earlier?

“A member of your cheerless squad?”

Ben scowled. “He has never fully supported my skating. It’s been years but I think a part of him still believes I’ll retire from skating and turn to hockey just like he’s always wanted.”

“Hockey?”

“I used to play as a kid. I was pretty good too, but I made my choice a long time ago even if my size makes figure skating hard and hockey easy. He used to play and since we’ve been fighting recently, he’s been bringing up the possibility more and more often. He says he knows a few coaches that would love to have me try out-”

“-Perhaps there is a career out there for you if you ever decide to stop skating,” Armitage interrupted. 

Ben felt his mouth fall open, usure what Hux was trying to say. “I don’t want to stop skating, that’s the whole point.”

“Sounds like you’ve given a lot of thought as to what your back-up plan is if all of this doesn’t come through.”

Ben could see and hear that Armitage’s whole demeanor had changed. His walls were back up and Ben had no idea why. Before Ben could say another word, Armitage placed his earbuds in his ears and turned his back to Ben once more, determined to stay that way for the rest of the flight.

Fortunately, Ben found himself distracted by the sight of Tokyo. Their flight landed in the morning and through bleary, sleepless eyes he saw the sparkling city for the first time. Something about the way the mid-morning sunlight reflected off the water and the mirrored windows of the skyscrapers made it seem like the city was giving off its own light. He had never been to Japan before, his competitions had yet to take him here. His concentration towards winning their competition had caused him to forget that he was traveling to someplace entirely unknown to him.

His traveling companion was not as caught up in their unfamiliar surroundings. If Ben’s memory served, and when it came to Armitage Hux, it usually did, he had competed in the NHK trophy at least once when he had won it and possibly one other time earlier in his career. He made his way through the airport with ease. Ben decided it would be better to follow him than try to navigate on his own. He didn’t want to test his non-existent Japanese. 

Armitage hardly paid attention to anyone and certainly not Ben. He spared Ben a few passing glances, sometimes to make sure he was still there. When they reached the trains, he begrudgingly showed Ben how to operate the system. He must have noticed the way Ben’s eyes went wide at the text on the display and the map next to the kiosk. 

Though he hated being so dependent on someone, Ben was intensely grateful he had someone to guide him through Tokyo. On their way to the hotel, they passed through parts of the Shibuya district. Brightly lit and choked with people, Ben was glad he didn’t have to brave the city alone.

Their time in Japan was going to be short. Tomorrow they would skate in the ice show and no matter how things turned out they would leave the next day. 

“What are you going to do before the show tomorrow?” asked Ben when he was tired of being ignored by Armitage. They had a whole day to spend in the city. Ben knew that if he spent it in his hotel room he was going to fall asleep and lose any hope of acclimating to the new time zone. Armitage was in the same position. 

Armitage considered this. “We’ll check in, take our bags up to our rooms, settle in, and we’ll meet back in the lobby at noon.”

Ben was certain he hadn’t asked Armitage to make plans for the two of them and was surprised by the sudden itinerary. He had no idea where Armitage planned to take him, but at the moment he was up for anything. 

They checked in at the hotel and left their bags in one of their two rooms. The clerk at the front desk told them that the other wasn’t ready yet. Ben told Hux to take the room and sat on the bed while Armitage put his things away. He felt himself drifting off even as he sat there with his eyes open. Though he loved that traveling was such a huge part of his career, everything from getting to the airport until about a day after arriving was a nightmare for him. He hadn’t quite figured out how to stave off jet lag and at this point, he assumed he never would. 

Armitage was finished quickly and they left sooner than Ben would have liked. He was so close to falling asleep on the bed. His eyes had just flickered shut when he felt the bed move. Armitage stood over him, having just kicked the bed.

“Come on,” he said. Their plan to meet in the lobby had been thrown off because they had to share a room for the time being. Armitage led them downstairs and back to the train station. They both spoke little, mostly due to exhaustion. Ben had few words on a good day, but after being awake for over twenty four hours he was mute.

Ben tried not to look around in childlike wonder, but the effort was mostly futile. He realized soon enough that Armitage was either just as out of it as he was or he just didn’t care. He tried not to let that thought dampen his day.

When they left the train, he followed Armitage to an unassuming building, a tea house if he wasn’t entirely mistaken. He let Armitage speak to the woman at the front and took a look around. The house was dark and quiet with a couple of customers seated at low tables. He walked slowly towards the back of the place where the building was open to the outside. Armitage had taken him to a place that seemed a world away from the city he had been in minutes ago. He was surrounded by trees, green all around, a pond and a beautiful garden. It felt like he could breathe again.

The feeling stunned him for a moment. He hardly noticed Armitage when he reappeared at his side and lead him to one of the tables. 

He realized he must look sort of ridiculous sitting so low to the ground. Everything about him seemed much too big all of a sudden. Armitage didn’t seem to have the same concern. Ben watched him as he ordered something for the two of them, probably for the best since Ben wouldn’t have had the faintest idea what to say. The man was slight and small, just like most of the other skaters Ben had known. He, himself, had always been a bit of an anomaly among them, always a bit too tall and too wide to ever be taken seriously. There was something fine and almost elven to Armitage’s features. You could cut yourself on his jawline.

Ben realized that the part of him that was still a fifteen-year-old boy with posters of Armitage Hux had not been adequately suppressed. He hardly realized that Armitage had turned his keen eyes to him and had said something to him, something he hadn’t exactly heard.

“Sorry, could you repeat that?”

“I asked what you thought of the place.” Armitage had transcended feeling annoyed towards Ben and had moved on to something like ambivalence.

“Oh, I figured you would take me sight-seeing or something.”

“Is that what you wanted?”

Ben couldn’t say whether what he had wanted because, in truth, he didn’t really know. This was nice though, quiet and secluded, off in their corner of the teahouse with no one around.

“No, this is fine. Uh, perfect, actually.”

“I rather like it,” said Hux, as though he could care less what Ben thought. A small smile curled the corners of his lips though, and when their tea was placed in front of them he hid it behind his cup. Ben took an experimental sip. He had no idea what to expect. He really didn’t drink tea. To his surprise he liked it. It was green, herbal and soothing, light and refined. It was not something he would have gone out of his way to try on his own but something that fit Armitage somehow.

The whole day was rather lovely in a quiet way. The tension between them eased a bit the more time they spent together. It felt odd though. They were meant to be competitors and just when it seemed as though he could have forgotten that and started to like Armitage Hux, some part of him would remember. Armitage didn’t seem to have the same trouble. He treated Ben cordially, if coldly. He always seemed to keep Ben just at arm’s length, never letting him get too close but letting him get close enough to want something more.

Armitage wasn’t too familiar with Tokyo at all. The way he carried himself made it seem as though he always knew exactly what he was doing and where he was going at all times. He always appeared to be completely in control, even if that wasn’t the case. He seemed to know his way around Tokyo well enough. He could navigate the trains and winding streets. He knew a little Japanese and could speak well enough with shopkeepers, but seemed to be at a bit of a loss for what to do for the rest of the day. They wandered past shops just window shopping, occasionally stopping to enter one. It seemed as though the tea house had been the only real stop on his itinerary.

After grabbing something quick for dinner, they found themselves down by the waterfront overlooking the harbor. Ben wondered if Armitage had meant to take them here or if he had gotten a bit lost along the way. The sky was dark by now and the whole city was lit up around them. The bridge across the way was lit up in the dark and stretched across the skyline.  
“It’s a nice view,” said Ben, hoping to make up for the fact that they may have wound up here by mistake. 

“Yes,” was all Armitage said. Ben turned to look at him and saw Hux’s eyes flicker out over the water, away from him. 

“I had a nice time today,” Ben said. “Thanks for showing me the city.”

Armitage smirked. “You’ve hardly seen anything, but in a day and a half you aren’t likely to see anything more.”

A cool breeze ruffled Ben’s hair and Ben decided he felt bold. “Maybe we’ll have to come back sometime and you can show me some more.” 

For the first time in Ben’s memory, Armitage looked surprised. His rose-colored lips parted and his eyes went wide. The expression was gone in an instant, but Ben was sure that he would never forget it. 

“We’ll see.”

When they headed back to the hotel, the man at the front desk began apologizing profusely. There wasn’t a second room available for them. There had been some sort of mix up with the reservation, but ultimately they learned that there was only one room for the two of them. 

Ben suggested that he pay for his own room, but Hux immediately refused. 

“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Armitage, completely dismissing the idea. Ben could see the dark blue shadows under Hux’s eyes. He looked about as exhausted as Ben felt.

They went up to the room with hardly a word shared between them. Ben could have sworn he noticed Armitage swaying a little as he stood in the elevator. When Ben had nearly fallen asleep that morning, he had never expected he would make it until this late in the evening. It was only around ten o’clock, but as he made his way ever closer to a bed, his body remembered just how tired it was. 

The moment their door was unlocked, Armitage went straight to the bed. He laid down on the left side without taking his clothes off and closed his eyes. Ben stood dumbfounded at the sight. He wasn’t sure what to make of the almost asleep form of Armitage Hux lying on the bed.

“Don’t you want to… you know, undress or something? At least take your shoes off…”

Armitage barely moved. “You can take off my shoes if it bothers you but honestly I could care less.”

Ben blinked, still unsure of what to do. “You are such a child,” said Ben, as he moved to untie Hux’s shoes. He tossed them aside and decided to take the socks off too. Ben felt lucky his feet didn’t smell, but he noticed the rough calluses and blisters along the toes and sole of his feet. 

“You need to get new skates,” remarked Ben. No one should have feet like that from skating.

Armitage opened one eye to see what Ben was talking about. “It’s not from skating, idiot. Ballet is murder on the feet.” He kicked Ben’s hands away lightly. “I find it helps with skating.”

“For flexibility and movement, yeah,” Ben wasn’t sure where he was quoting that from. “I never really got into it.”

“I’d like to see you try.” Ben wasn’t sure why he was being insulted when Armitage added. “I bet you’d be quite good with a bit of practice.” 

A compliment. Ben chose to leave it alone rather than revel in it. “Come on, are you really going to sleep in that?”

“I am absolutely fine. You can do whatever you want so long as you shut up and turn the light out.” Armitage rolled over onto his side.

Ben went over to his luggage to grab a pair of pants and a t-shirt before heading to the bathroom. He changed and came back out to find Armitage unmoved.

“I’ll just sleep on the couch then,” whispered Ben to himself.

“Get over here, you idiot.” Armitage had heard him. “I’m not so much of a monster that I’ll put you out on the couch all night. 

Ben sat down on the right side of the bed, still unsure. 

“I don’t bite,” said Armitage, his back turned to him. 

“Good night,” said Ben.

“Go to sleep,” was all he got in return.

\------------------------

  
Hux couldn’t believe he had slept in so late. It was about 2 o’clock when he woke up at last, after rolling over and dozing off again several times.

Ben Solo was still asleep when Hux checked his phone and realized what time it was. His overgrown form was sprawled out across the bed in deep sleep. One of his prostrate arms stretched towards where Hux’s body had been on the bed.

Armitage went to the window to open the curtains and was accosted by the bright midday sunlight. It shouldn’t have hurt as much as it did.

After a shower and new clothes, Hux decided to wake the slumbering giant in his bed. 

“It’s two o’clock. We meet Snoke in two hours at the rink.”

Ben’s eyes widened, shaking off sleep in an instant. 

They made it there with time to spare, both of them fresh and well-rested, ready to take on the competition that faced them at the end of the day. 

Snoke greeted them warmly. The coach decided to keep up a pretense of faint amusement, as though he didn’t enjoy every minute of having these two world-class skaters under his thumb. Hux hated feeling indebted to him but wanted to be his student so badly he was willing to play along in order to get what he wanted. Ben Solo didn’t seem to have a supplicating bone in his body. If it were a matter of Snoke deciding head on who he would rather have as a student, Hux felt sure it would have been himself. That said, they would compete with for that spot in only a few hours and Hux felt pretty confident in that arena as well.

They were introduced to Snoke’s ice show coordinator friend who practically kissed them both in gratitude. He couldn’t believe that Snoke had managed to get him two renowned performers on such short notice. 

The rink was smaller than was usually typical, with no walls to enclose it. It looked as though the skaters just stepped out onto a stage in the middle of the crowd and Hux found it oddly intimate. His exhibition skate would need some small adjustments in order to accommodate the setting, but he took the thought in stride.

Hux took to the ice first after booting up and completing his usual warm-ups. All of this felt routine. No matter where he went it would always feel just like this. It didn’t matter where he went, the ice would always feel the same to him. Perhaps it was a home, an anchor, in a way. That was at least what he told himself when he realized he felt very little about this at all. There was no excitement or fear in him, there were no stakes. He felt next to nothing and it worried him. Worry. He held onto that emotion tightly, at least it was something.

His routine was fine. After warming up and running through it a few times, he stepped off the ice feeling something like satisfaction. There was nothing more to be done. 

He caught a glimpse of Ben’s face before he stepped out to start his rehearsal. There was a small amount of wide-eyed fear that couldn’t be hidden by the resolute set of his jaw. The uncertain satisfaction he had felt as he stepped off the ice strengthened at the sight of Ben’s nerves. Good, thought Hux, at least there’s that. 

Ben was a mess. He threw himself into his routine with a terrifying fierceness. He over-rotated his jumps and nearly fell off the ice. It took him several tries to get through the skate at all. Hux tried not to watch. He almost felt embarrassed for Ben.

The show began later that night. There were hours of preparation to be had beforehand, so he and Ben saw little of each other leading up to today’s big event. Hux slipped on his costume, simple red and black, and knew he was ready. 

He hardly watched the show. The two of them would be the finale which meant that they had to sit through the whole hour of the show before their moment of reckoning. The whole time he was distracted by Ben sitting in the row of seats perpendicular to his own. There was no way Ben Solo had worn that during the Grand Prix. It would have been impossible not to notice. Even now, in the moments where his concentration mattered the most, he found himself unable to look away.

His upper body was covered in a black clinging mesh that showed everything. The muscles of his chest weren’t just outlined but nearly palpable. It was dark, but he was almost sure that he could see the man’s nipples through the barely-there fabric of the shirt. His shirt ended in a sort of suit jacket tail that he sat on while he was seated. He was lined in silver with his long hair worn loose. That had to be another difference from competition. There was no way Hux hadn’t noticed that hair before.

The rest of the show ended. The announcer, possibly Snoke’s friend, told the crowd that tonight’s finale would be something special. Hux stepped up to the ice. 

There was a certain amount of showmanship to skating, even before the music started to play. Tonight, Hux was all smiles and waves to the crowd when he stepped out onto the ice, a decision he hoped would please the crowd.

His piece began and his body acted instinctually. He knew the routine by heart. He had practiced it until he felt it in his bones. There was no way he would mess this up tonight. It was impossible.

He made it through his jumps with well-honed precision. Nothing was going to stop him tonight. He was going to win this and become Snoke’s student and, and…

Hux felt the chill of the ice on his knee as he slid across the ice. That hadn’t been part of the plan. He hadn’t fallen, exactly, but he had faltered and almost gone down. His body followed through with the next steps in the skate, but he was shaken. What had just happened?

His step sequence took him a little too close to the edge of the ice and Hux felt panic again. This was all wrong. 

The audience knew nothing of the internal struggle going on inside him. Most probably hadn’t noticed that his performance had been anything but perfection. He tried to hide his scowl as he waved to the crowd when it was all over. He hoped he didn’t look too constipated.

Hux tried to tell himself that everything was fine as he unlaced his skates. Ben had been an absolute disaster at practice. His own skate hadn’t gone as horribly as he thought. Everything could still work out exactly the way he’d planned it.

Ben stepped out onto the ice looking slightly less nervous than before. He wasn’t nearly as friendly with the crowd as Hux had been, showing a bit of sobriety that Hux hadn’t seen in him before. 

What had Hux planned? What was his future going to be? He would win this competition, even now he couldn’t doubt that, but then what? 

He watched Ben intently from the rinkside, analyzing every move the younger skater made. Hux knew Ben’s routine pretty well from watching him redo it over and over again during rehearsal. Tonight, only hours later, it was different.

Ben Solo seemed more centered tonight than usual but that fire inside him was still there. The energy that propelled him too far and too fast was still there, but he seemed to be fighting it now. The moves he made in the opening of his routine were slower, more controlled.

Hux wasn’t nervous immediately. Instead, he looked closer. Something about Ben Solo had changed and only now did Hux see the potential in him. Ben Solo had made it all the way to the Grand Prix Final, even if Hux hadn’t taken him seriously then.

It wasn’t until midway through the performance that fear began to grow in Hux. The piece Ben was skating to began slowly with a solo violin and then launched into a virtuosic melody that picked up speed all the way until the final moments of the performance. It showcased Ben’s technical skills and the step sequences he was known for. It was fiery and alive, but Ben often got carried away. 

Initially, it seemed as though Ben had a handle on the strength and passion that made and ruined his performances. It was like nothing that Hux had ever seen before. Ben’s raw athleticism and power shot him across the ice, into spins and jumps. This was what he was working towards all along. This was how he had gotten so far. 

Ben launched into a quad flip that was probably unnecessary for the audience they were performing for. He missed the landing and fell onto the ice. He slid on his side for a moment before getting back up. It took several measures for him to get back into the rhythm of his piece again.

Hux left before Ben picked himself back up off of the ice. It’s over, thought Hux. He’s won.

He grabbed his bag and headed for the door. The night air was cool on his warm, embarrassed face. He was still wearing his costume as he waited for the train. Hux thought he could hear applause from the audience and Snoke announcing the winner. He wondered what Snoke and Ben’s faces looked like when they realized he was nowhere to be found. He wasn’t sure how he wanted them to look and tried to forget them altogether.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As promised, chapter 2 on Friday! Chapter 3 will be up on Wednesday (I'm putting it off a day for Christmas).
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!


	3. Chapter 3

It should have been hard to leave his whole life behind to move to Los Angeles to train with Snoke. Ben wondered if he should be worried about not missing his family more. When he trained with Luke, he saw his uncle and cousin every day. His parents lived in the city, though his mom was always flitting back and forth between New York and DC for work. The two of them always managed to make it to his competitions somehow. His family had been a constant in his life for so long, but he was glad to be out from under their thumb.

Los Angeles was different from New York. It was bigger, hotter, all of it like a sepia-toned desert mirage. At first, Ben had bristled under the bright sun and constant heat, but he was growing to love it all the same. 

He stayed in Snoke’s house for his first two weeks in LA. Ben was accustomed to having a close relationship with his coach, but he had to admit that living with Snoke felt strange. Every second of his life was monitored: what he ate, when he slept, how much time he spent on his phone, when he could slip smaller workouts into his free time. Every minute of his life became focused on skating. It was exactly what Ben had wanted. The constant focus was hard, but Ben felt like this was really going to help him improve. This was why he had come to Snoke.

Still, Ben looked for an apartment in earnest during those first two weeks. He knew Snoke’s constant attention was exactly what he needed, and he was already starting to see results in his physique and in his training, but he still felt strange about living in the man’s home. Maybe it was the fact that Snoke was still practically a stranger to him. Ben may have crashed on Uncle Luke’s couch on more than one occasion, but Luke had been there when Ben was born, had been a constant figure in Ben’s childhood. 

One morning, Ben had woken up to Snoke looming over him in bed. He almost fallen out of bed when he saw Snoke’s sunken eyes and scarred face first thing in the morning. It had been creepy and far too intimate. What had he been doing in Ben’s room? Had he been about to wake him up? How long had he been standing there, watching him?

His new apartment was about five minutes away from his new rink, twenty minutes if the traffic was really monstrous or ten minutes if Snoke told him to run there. It was small, a twin mattress on the floor, a small kitchen, and a bathroom made up the entire space. He had even been able to rescue his dog from his family in New York and bring him here. Ben couldn’t tell if Vader liked their new home, but he hadn’t wrecked the place just yet which was a good sign. The room was smaller than his apartment in Manhattan and almost the same price, but Ben loved it.

On his first day, he met Phasma Christie, a champion in women’s figure skating and one of his cousin’s rivals. She was a bit taller and more muscular than most of the other female skaters he had met, nearly a head taller than Rey. Phasma was also rough around the edges in a way that reminded him of Rey. Maybe it was something about the dainty way female skaters have to present themselves on the ice, but off the ice, Phasma was strong, tough, and could probably kick his ass if he rubbed her the wrong way. 

She trained under one of Snoke’s contemporaries from when he used to compete, Rae Sloane. Ben never saw much of the woman; Sloane and Snoke didn’t get along and could hardly stand to be in the same room. Ben might catch a glimpse of graying black hair at the rink when he was just starting his practice and Phasma was finishing hers or the other way around, but he was never properly introduced to Phasma’s coach. 

All in all, Ben didn’t have any regrets about taking this next step in his career. Sure, Snoke trained him hard and he had left his life in New York behind, but it was all meant to serve a greater purpose. His family would see that he had been right all along once he started competing again. This was hard now, but it was all going to be worth it in the end.

He tried to tell himself that when he looked in the mirror after showers and saw his ribs starting to show in his chest. He told himself it would all be worth it every time his stomach growled. He told himself it would all be worth it every time he found himself tired, in a fog from too much work or not enough sleep or the idea that if he can’t live up to Snoke’s training regimen, maybe he isn’t cut out for greatness after all. 

This was hard now, but it was all going to be worth it in the end.

"Again." 

Ben was gasping on the ice, his hands on his knees to keep from falling. Beads of sweat dripped down onto the ice and his legs nearly fell with them.

"Again." Snoke's voice was stronger now, more insistent.

Everything in Ben wanted to shout that he couldn't. He didn't have one more repetition left in his body, but he slowly skated back into position. 

"From the top, and if it's not perfect now, guess what we're doing next?"

Suicides. Back and forth across the ice until he either fell or Snoke let him stop. The latter had yet to occur.

Ben wiped some of the sweat of his face. It was a futile effort, but the feeling of it running down his face was a distraction. With a deep breath, he launched into the sequence.

Snoke's words were in his mind with every move. He picked up speed where he had been told to, straightened his trail leg as he came out of his jump. He was doing so well.

Until it came to the final jump in the tricky combination. The entry was perfect, he made all of the required rotations, but when it came time for the landing in the brief seconds of the jump. All of Ben's weight came down on his landing leg, and it gave way beneath him.

His body went sliding across the ice. 

Instantly, Ben saw red. He slammed his fist down on the ice, furious with himself. 

Snoke, in the bleachers, simply shook his head.

Ben growled. He rose to his feet slowly, shaking clumsily like a faun on new legs. The fall hadn't hurt him and in the moment, he wished it had. He skated over to the goal line to start these punishment suicides on Snoke's mark.

He shook his head, trying to clear the cloud of frustration from his mind. His long hair was soaked in sweat. He still hadn't managed to catch his breath.

"Enough," said Snoke. "I'm done with you."

"No," Ben protested, despite his muscles which were already celebrating their reprieve. 

"Yes. You'll start these suicides before tomorrow's workout." He paused as though he wasn’t sure if he wanted to say what came next. “Maybe Armitage Hux would have been a better student.”

In the moments as Snoke walked away, Ben felt like he’d been slapped. His mouth hung open in shock, though he was entirely without the ability to do anything about it. His knees felt frozen in the ice and he couldn’t get up, to try and stop him from leaving, to try and finish the workout, to try to do anything.

Then came the anger. Ben wanted to hit something. He wanted to scream. The workout had left him without the energy to do any of those things and he limped toward the locker room in a fog. The pain in his ankle was the worst of all.

Phasma was headed to the rink to start her practice when she passed him in the hall. She stared at him with wide eyes and shock on her face.

“What happened to you? Looks like you’ve been hit by a bus-”

Ben cut her off almost at once. He was not in the mood. “I’m fine, just practice.”

She was able to stop him in his tracks with a single hand on his shoulder. “Snoke is working you to death, you need to stop this.”

He took her hand off his shoulder, trying to hide a grimace of pain. “I’m fine.”

“Oh yeah?” She grabbed his duffel bag with his skates and equipment inside and tossed it on the ground about three feet in front of them. Looking him in the eyes she pointed to it. “Pick it up.”

She was daring him to prove her right. He was sore, tired beyond belief, and just as ready to fall on top of his bag as he was to pick it up. Ben growled.

“I’m sore, alright? What’s wrong with you?” He refused to bend down and pick up the bag. He wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction. 

Phasma shook her head, as though she couldn’t believe him. “You’re falling apart. What is Snoke doing to you?”

“He’s making me a better skater.”

“He’s killing you slowly,” said Phasma. “You’re a great skater, Ben, but this is not helping you.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Phasma looked like she wanted to hit him. “You think you’re the first skater I’ve seen starve themselves in order to skate better?” She picked up the duffel bag and shoved it in his arms. The force of it nearly knocked him over. “Grow up, Ben,” she spat.

She stalked off towards the locker room, leaving him there. Ben couldn’t imagine what had made her so angry and he didn’t really care. It wasn’t her responsibility to care for him. He was fine and he had Snoke to look after him every minute of the day. 

Phasma really had no idea what she was talking about. Ben knew now that she was just like everyone else.

\------------------------------------------------------------------------

Contrary to popular opinion, the London rain always had a way of lifting Hux’s mood rather than dragging it down even further. The steady beat of raindrops was a comforting sound, especially when he didn’t have to venture out into it. He could stay at home and drink tea with his cat, not having to worry about the rest of the world.

He had thought returning to his apartment in London would be good for him. Over the last few months of competition, he hadn’t been home nearly as much as his cat would have liked. After past seasons, it had always been a bit of a relief to settle down for a few weeks before it all started back up again. 

Today, the rain made his dark home more like a prison than a sanctuary. He had come back two weeks ago and hadn’t done much since. He feared he was starting to go mad with the uncertainty of it all. 

Hux had no coach, no prospects for his future, and no idea what he was going to do about it. 

He had left Tokyo in a haze of disbelief and things hadn’t yet come back into focus. Snoke had been his last plan to reinvent himself, to put some life back into his dying career. Years ago he had made some plans for what he was going to do when his skating career ended, but they were a younger man’s vision of the future. Looking at them now, they didn’t seem realistic.

After secondary school, Hux had spent four years earning a degree in architecture, with the hopes that he’d be able to start a new path in his life if he wanted. It always felt like something to fall back on, that he’d never actually need. Just the idea of it sounded patently ridiculous now.

He loved skating and was good at it. It felt like it was being stolen from him after years of giving it everything he had. Every reasonable person knows the end of everything comes soon enough. There is grace in being able to meet that end with dignity. Hux knew he wasn’t facing his end with quiet dignity.

Hux was a mess. He had hardly left the apartment in the two weeks he had been home. He wasn’t sure if his mother knew he was back in the country, though he had taken pains to make sure that his father did not. His phone had been dead for days and he hadn’t bothered to charge it. It was just one more thing to remind him of the rest of the world. His cupboards were starting to go bare because he refused to go out to the market. He knew he was sulking, but had allowed himself a few weeks to mourn his skating career.

It had been two weeks and the part of his brain that sounded like his father told him he was being ridiculous. 

His first steps towards recovery were charging his phone and heading to the grocery. He took a shower and cleaned his apartment fastidiously. By the end of the day, he felt slightly pleased with himself which was better than he had felt in some time. He made himself a pasta with spinach, tomatoes, and shrimp that he reluctantly tossed to Millicent after a few attention-seeking meows. 

In all his productivity, he hesitated to check his phone. He had an idea of what he would find when he finally turned it on: missed phone calls and voicemails from his mother, father, and maybe Phasma, all wondering where he had disappeared to, whether or not he was even alive at this point. Phasma had texted him several times with varying levels of annoyance and concern. Of the three people who cared about Hux the most, she was the only one he really felt he owed an explanation. 

He knew she was training in LA and a quick check for the time difference told him that he had a 50/50 chance of her either picking up the phone or being busy at this time of day. Hux decided to risk it.

After three rings, she answered. Hux wasn’t sure whether to be nervous or pleased. He had always liked Phasma. She had been there for him in some of his lowest moments, when he was just starting out. It hadn’t been fair of him to shut her out for this long. 

“Hux?” said Phasma, without greeting. “Oh my god, are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” said Hux. So far, Phasma was merely concerned. 

“You scared the hell out of me. Don’t you ever disappear like that again.”

“I know, I’m sorry.” The apology sounded pathetic even to his ears.

There was a caustic laugh from the other end. “Three weeks, Hux. No one has seen or heard from you in three weeks. I even called your mum to see if she knew where you were.”

Hux winced at that. “I would make sure that you knew anything about me before my mother ever did.”

“You have a funny way of showing it,” Phasma sighed. Her breath crackled into the receiver. “So what have you been up to? Celebrating your golden year?”

That was what all of the skating commentators had been calling it, ‘Hux’s Golden Year’. At least, that was what they called his most recent season when they weren’t talking about whether or not he was about to retire. 

“I… I’ve been in London mostly.” He tried not to sound as tired as he felt. 

“Five minutes away from your mum’s and she has absolutely no idea.”

“I haven’t exactly been- You know what she’s like. She’s a nightmare and I just couldn’t-” He was falling apart and he was sure Phasma was starting to see exactly what the last three weeks had been like for him. Hux sat down on his sofa. He ran his fingers through his hair, exasperated. 

“What’s going on Hux?” Phasma wasn’t mad anymore. She was far more forgiving than he deserved and far more sensitive to those she cared about than anyone gave her credit for.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” He said. He was finally voicing everything he’d been wrestling with for the last three weeks. “For almost my whole life I’ve had one dream, one purpose. Skating is everything for me and now- I don’t know what comes next.”

Putting it into words felt like opening up the gaping chasm of his future and staring into the depths. For the last few weeks, possibly even before that, he had thought that if he looked too long he might fall in; fall in and discover there was nothing waiting for him at the bottom.

“You let all of those talking heads get to you about retiring next season. You don’t have to listen to them.”

“But what if they’re right! Maybe they are!” Part of him couldn’t believe he was shouting already. “I have no idea what kind of season I’ll have next year. This one nearly tore me apart. I have no motivation, no inspiration, that- that drive that has propelled me throughout my career is just… gone.”

Phasma was silent for a moment. Perhaps she was trying to decipher how much of what Hux was saying had been quoted from critics and how much was true. It had become so hard to distinguish his own voice in his head from that of his father or the newscasters or the bloggers or the judges. 

When she did speak again, her voice was quiet and steady. “I can’t tell you what to do next. Only you can figure that out. I want to help you but I don’t think I can do it from the other end of a cell phone.” Phasma cleared her throat. “I want you to come out to California. You need to take some time off.”

“If I take time off now, I’ll never be able to come back to skating.”

“You have no idea what the next year has in store for you. Did you have plans to start training next week?”

“No, but-”

“I know you, Armitage Hux.” declared Phasma. “We’ve known each other a long time. It sounds like you’ve trapped yourself in your apartment for the last three weeks, pinned down with anxiety over what to do.” He hated that she was right and that she sounded slightly smug about it. “One, two weeks in California is not going to do any more damage than that to your skating career. If you really need to skate, you can do it here. I’m sure they’ll have no problems letting you use the rink.”

“Phasma…” He wanted to protest but then thought better of it. What excuse did he have to say no? He could spend another few weeks holed up in his apartment trying to figure things out or he could be with his closest friend, distract himself a bit and talk things out rationally. 

“You know, I was reminded of you earlier today. I almost called again and left another angry voicemail.” 

Hux leaned back on the couch, his head thrown back, relaxed even a little for the first time in a while. “Oh really? What brought me to mind?”

“One of the less than sparkling moments in our friendship.” He frowned slightly. Unfortunately, there were more than a few incidents she could be referring to. “I don’t think you’re aware, but Ben Solo started training at my rink recently.”

“I could go the rest of my life without hearing that name again,” said Hux, flatly. He mostly meant it.

“So you know him?” 

“You could say I’ve gotten to know him very well,” said Hux. “So what?” he snapped. “That oaf did something to remind you of me?”

He could almost hear her frown in her voice. “Has he done something recently? He seems nice enough, although-”

“What?” Ben Solo was the last thing Hux wanted to discuss. Moments ago he would have given anything to never talk about his future ever again, but Ben Solo was not a welcome distraction from that. 

“We had a conversation today that reminded me of one the two of us had ten years ago or so.” Her voice had gone sad toward the end. Hux remembered that time in his life, his career. 

“What- What reminded you of that?” He couldn’t imagine anything about Ben Solo resembling the young man Hux had been at seventeen. Skin and bones, more ambition than person, living on a diet of caffeine pills and apples. 

“He did. The way he was skating, how he could barely keep himself standing, the dark circles under his eyes… I can only imagine what Snoke is having him do.”

Hux had some ideas as well, none of them particularly pleasant. Snoke was a world-renowned coach though, surely he would know better than to jeopardize the health of his skater. “You were very good to me then. I’m not sure I deserved it.”

“I’m not sure anyone deserves to be put through that. Anyway, I wasn’t exactly able to get through to him today the way I did with you. If you come out to LA, do you think you could talk to him?”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” said Hux. In fact, it sounded like a terrible idea. 

“I don’t care what happened between the two of you. I’ll make you tell me eventually, but he needs to talk to someone who has been through this sort of thing before. Some outside person he doesn’t have to interact with every day who can knock some sense into his thick skull and then leave.”

“Tempting,” said Hux. “Though I haven’t actually said that I’ll go.”

“Of course, you’re coming,” said Phasma as though it was obvious. “I’ll have my couch ready for you by the time you touch down in three days.” It was as if they had already booked the tickets. Hux found that he didn’t mind it.

“I’m flying to California to sleep on a couch? Absolutely not.”

“I’ll try to find something more befitting his royal highness by the time you get here. Go book your ticket already.”

Hux was about to hang up when he noticed himself smiling for the first time in weeks. Maybe since that day in Tokyo with Ben Solo. “Thank you, Phasma.”

“Don’t worry about it,” she said before hanging up.

He had been wrong to shut her out for so long. Perhaps he really didn’t deserve to have a friend like her, even if being Phasma’s friend meant being forced to fly all the way to California.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you had a very nice 25th if that's your thing. The next chapter should be up on Friday. As always, you can find me on twitter [@a_ginger_midget](https://twitter.com/a_ginger_midget) and on tumblr [@keep-on-leggin](https://keep-on-leggin.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Thanks again for reading!


	4. Chapter 4

Airports had always fascinated Hux. After spending much of his adult life shuttling back and forth between them, his interest had only grown. They were weird liminal spaces. Most of them looked the same no matter where you were or what time of day it was. You were constantly surrounded by people with their own lives and agendas and even if you tried, you could never learn everything there is to know about any one of them. 

Being at the airport always came with a sense of purpose. There was something about having a destination that gave everything new meaning. He couldn’t help but feel the same effect as he waited for his flight from Heathrow to LAX. 

The flood of people paid him hardly any attention, but he couldn’t help but notice them as he tried in vain to read his book. An elderly couple, a family with three young boys, a group of four friends only a few years younger than Hux. He had no idea where they were going or returning to and he never would. They, in turn, would never know that he was a world-renowned figure skater trying to figure out what to do with his life. He reveled in the anonymity.

Hux boarded the plane without incident. He was prepared to slip his earbuds in and ignore everyone else for the entirety of the flight when he saw he had received a voicemail from Phasma. He, like everyone under the age of thirty, kept his phone on silent and hadn’t noticed an incoming phone call. With a few taps, he played the message.

“Hey, I just checked the time you’re going to land and realized I’m not going to be able to pick you up from the airport. I figure you can just get a taxi, but let me know ASAP if you really need me to find someone to pick you up. You know my address. I’ll leave a spare key under the doormat. You can settle in until I get back from practice. See you in eleven hours!”

The news that he would be on his own for his first few hours in Los Angeles was not terrible. He could find his way around on his own. Phasma had texted him her address in case he had forgotten. Hux sighed and slipped his complimentary sleep mask on. Nothing but sleep was going to make this long flight go any faster. 

Hux had never been to LA before. He had never had any real desire to go. He had been to Skate America three times in his career, twice in Chicago and once in Detroit, and New York was the only city he had ever visited on holiday. From his limited knowledge of the state, California was hot and busy, which didn’t make it one of the top ten places he wished to travel to. Still, if Phasma could put up with it for months on end, he supposed he could endure it for however long he ended up staying with her. 

He still didn’t have a plan or a purpose, but he did have a destination. That would have to be enough for now.

As he stepped out of the plane in LA, he could already feel the heat from outside warming the walkway between the plane and the airport terminal. It wasn’t entirely unpleasant, but it would take some getting used to and potentially a change in his normal attire. His dress shirt was not going to last long under the sun.

Phasma lived in an apartment complex within walking distance of her training rink. The two-story building was ugly but functional. Hux could tell that this was exactly the way Phasma wanted it. While she might look the part of a princess on the ice, she preferred her life to be spartan in the extreme when she wasn’t performing.

He found the key precisely where she said it would be. He would have to have a word with her later about the safety of that decision. Did she want strangers breaking into her apartment? The first room he entered was small but comfortable, a kitchen attached to a living room with a pullout couch already made into a bed for him. 

For all he had joked about not wanting to sleep on a pullout couch, this would suit him fine. Perhaps it was the California sunshine or the change of pace, but Hux felt a bit more like himself already. Even being holed up in an apartment in Los Angeles felt different from hiding himself away in his own apartment in London. Here, the light seeped in past the curtains whether you wanted it to or not.

This was going to be good for him. He was going to make sure of it.

He was there for about an hour before Phasma showed up, dripping in sweat and happy to see him. 

“Come here!” said Phasma, opening her arms wide despite or perhaps because of the sweat stains under her arms. 

“Don’t you dare,” said Hux, getting up from his couch bed in a hurry, but with a smile stretched across his face.

Phasma caught him anyway and wrapped her arms around him. “You deserve it for disappearing for three weeks.” After a few seconds of a tight hug, she let go and placed her hands on his shoulders, looking him over. “How are you?” she asked him seriously.

“Better,” he said, and he was glad to find that it felt like the truth. 

After an appraising look, Phasma nodded. “Good. I’m going to go take a shower, but when I come out, get ready to see the sights. I’ve got a jam-packed itinerary of every touristy thing to do in Los Angeles waiting for us.”

Hux might have been feeling a bit better than a few days ago when he had cut himself off from the world and locked himself away in his apartment, but the thought of any kind of sightseeing made him want to lie down for a year. 

Phasma must have caught on to how drained even the thought of such a thing made him. She barked a laugh and Hux looked up at her. “I’m joking. I was thinking Chinese food and you can get a jump start on sleeping away your jet lag?”

“You are a saint, Phasma.” It was almost as if she had read his mind.

“But you knew that already,” she called over her shoulder, already on her way to the bathroom. 

As promised, Phasma ordered Chinese food and they caught up in the commercial breaks of America’s Got Talent. They picked up right where they left off at the end of last season. By now they knew each other too well for awkwardness. Phasma told him about her training regimen and her coach, laughed about the awful magic act on the show, and reminded him of that time when they were younger and he wanted to become a singer.

“That’s not true,” Hux protested.

“It is!” insisted Phasma. “You wanted to quit skating and start a band. I was going to play the guitar.”

Hux scoffed. “You don’t know how to play the guitar.”

“No one ever said this was a brilliant plan. You were twelve at the time.”

Hux began to remember some of this phase, though time had thankfully buried it deeply. “Oh…” he started, his memory beginning to catch up with him. “Twelve, was it? I remember now.”

“You remember how badly you longed for the stage?” Phasma said melodramatically. “A single spotlight and a backup band?”

“I had seen a video of David Bowie and desperately wanted to wear something that outrageous.” His voice was low as he recalled that this was exactly why he’d gone through that phase. Somehow, at twelve, it hadn’t occurred to him that he would wear plenty of outrageous outfits and no one would bat an eye at him for it through his skating career.

“You liar,” said Phasma, looking at him in disbelief. “Is that really why you started combing your hair back and singing every chance you got? You were bloody awful at it by the way.”

Hux shook his head. “I never really had a chance at making that a career, did I?”

“You had to settle for becoming the best skater in the world. Poor you.”

She didn’t mean it as a slight and Hux tried not to take it as one. He smiled ruefully so that Phasma could see he was alright before he got up to grab a beer from Phasma’s fridge. “Beer and Chinese food, the dinner of champions.”

Phasma took a sip of her own. “It’s the offseason and my best friend is in town. I’m allowed to celebrate.” 

On screen, an eight-year-old held out the last note of an aria that should have been sung by someone at least twice her age. Both of them were only half watching by now. Phasma kept glancing over at him and Hux yawned. His jet lag was beginning to catch up to him. 

“You should go to the rink tomorrow,” said Phasma, keeping him from nodding off on the couch. 

“Why on Earth should I do that?” He had missed skating, missed being at his rink almost every day with a singular goal in mind. He was also dreading going back there again, the idea that any time might be his last.

Phasma looked back towards the television, not really watching at all. “I think it would be good for you.”

Maybe going to the rink would be cathartic, but Hux wasn’t sure he was ready to go back, to say goodbye in a way, just yet. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Hux, just…” She didn’t seem to know exactly what to say to him. “I don’t know what your future looks like. I can’t help you there but… skating has always been a part of your life. If you cut it out now just to move ahead, you might be moving on and leaving a part of yourself behind.” Phasma bent down to gather the near-empty food containers and went to throw them away. She finished the last of her drink and set the bottle down. “Go to the rink tomorrow. If you get there around nine in the morning, you should have the place to yourself. Just… try to remember what you loved about skating. I’m not asking you to make a life-changing decision, just… confront it, I guess.”

Phasma wasn’t necessarily the best when it came to heart-to-heart conversations. In fact, most people found her too frank, too blunt, and not emotional enough, to connect to. Perhaps that’s why Hux always found himself opening up to her. She wasn’t about to give him some over-emotional nonsense and she wasn’t about to spare his feelings if he was being irrational.

She couldn’t fully put into words what Hux was feeling and what he was avoiding, but Hux knew she understood. Part of him knew he had avoided his rink in London and going out into the world for three weeks for one reason or another. Phasma might not have been able to diagnose his problem in so many words, but she had pinpointed a promising solution. One that Hux was considering, but only because her suggestion had caused him to realize his deep-seated reluctance to go anywhere near an ice rink.

After cleaning up and taking the garbage out, Phasma went to bed with a short ‘good night’. She left a light on for him and Hux sat on his pull-out bed for a while before getting up to turn it off. He knew he should go to the rink tomorrow and he knew that if Phasma had her way, she’d make sure he was up by nine whether he went or not.

He slept soundly for a few hours but was awake before dawn. It seemed his subconscious had decided to go to the rink this morning whether he liked it or not. After a cup of coffee, he wrote a quick note for Phasma and gathered his gear. He had brought his skates and clothes to wear on the ice perhaps knowing Phasma would try to drag him to the rink at some point. Maybe some part of him had still held on to hope that he might return to skating next season.

He hadn’t made a decision either way just yet, but every day the choice to return became even harder to make. Every day he didn’t lace up his skates and step out onto the ice felt like he was making the choice to retire over and over again. 

The rink was empty aside from a girl opening up in the entrance way. He had gotten there about an hour earlier than Phasma had suggested, unable to sit and wait in the house any longer. The girl was startled at his knock on the glass door, but Phasma had told her that a friend might be stopping by early in the morning. Hux thought the girl stared at him a little too long and wondered if she followed men’s figure skating.

She let him in and Hux walked passed the locker rooms, heading straight to the ice. He laced up his skates in the bleachers. His fingers moved automatically, following a routine they had done hundreds of times. Hux wasn’t nervous anymore. His emotions were edging towards anxious. How would it feel to skate as though he were saying goodbye?

Hux shook his head. He was being ridiculous, putting so much importance into something as simple as taking a few laps around a rink. The most important thing now was to get out there and actually skate, break himself of the awful habit of coddling himself that he had fallen into in the last few weeks.

Stepping out onto the ice wasn’t a momentous occasion. He took a deep breath and took a few gliding steps towards the center of the ice, beginning a large loop around the rink. It was effortless. His blades hardly made a sound as he passed. 

It felt good. It felt easy and natural and right. He got tired of skating forwards, tracing oval paths across the ice like he was at a public ice session. So he smoothly crossed over to facing backward before starting a lazy step sequence. All the while, he made sure to keep his breath slow and even, forcing himself to relax and keeping his mind empty.

After a while, it occurred to him that this wasn’t something he had ever done before, skating just to enjoy skating. 

He kept himself from attempting any jumps, nothing too technical. Without thinking too much about it, he began to skate parts of his most recent free skate. He skated out of time, for the most part, the song becoming more lyrical and epic at a slower tempo. Without the jumps, he didn’t have to reach the same speed or intensity. He leaned in and became more expressive.

When the song in his head end, he came to a stop on the ice for the first time since he stepped out there. His arm was outstretched above him in his final pose. His breathing was still deep and slow. The last time he performed this routine he had finished it close to tears. Hot, angry tears that he held back through sheer will. It hadn’t felt like this.

The sound of a single person’s claps echoed in the empty room. Hux turns to see the girl from before standing outside the rink. She must have been watching him.

“That was amazing!” She called to him when he refused to pay her any attention. Rather than being deterred as Hux intended, she walked over to meet him. Hux grabbed a towel and his skate guards from his bag. When he looked up again, she was standing in front of him. “I wanted to let you know that the rink is booked for a skater at nine.”

Hux nodded, both to let her know that he heard her and to let her know that she could leave. Instead, she continued to stand there, a little star-eyed and nervous. “Got it,” he said aloud. “I was just finishing up.”

“You sure were,” she said. Hux arched an eyebrow, not sure what she meant by that. “That was the end of last season’s free skate, right? I’m Rose, kind of a fan.” Hux paused as he was about to untie his laces. The words came out of Rose’s mouth quickly and it took a moment to process exactly what she had said. “Not kind of a fan,” she corrected. “A huge fan, obviously, from how I can’t seem to shut up.” She added the last bit under her breath and more to herself than Hux.

Hux was notoriously terrible at meeting fans. He was flattered to be sure, but he never knew quite what to say to people. When he was at a loss for words, he tended to come across as cold or rude. Most of the time, he had somewhere else to be or was trying to mind his own business. 

He stood, wobbling slightly on the skates he was still wearing, and tried his level best to be kind. “Thank you, that’s alright. You’re very nice.”

Rose bit her lip as though she was trying to swallow her excitement. “Thank you,” she said back, in a deliberately calm voice. Hux mimed a deep breath and she followed suit. “Right, well, I’d better go clean the ice. I’m sure it’s not too bad, but Snoke is pretty particular.”

“Snoke?” Hux repeated, even before registering what she meant.

“Yeah, he’s got the rink booked. He usually has Ben in here around nine.”

There were quite a few things that upset Hux in that last statement. In the moment, the realization that Phasma was trying to set him up to watch Ben’s practice made him grit his teeth. “I’d better get out of their way then. It was nice meeting you.” 

He wished he had remembered to take his skates off before trying to make a quick exit.

Rose, for her part, did not laugh when he fell. She helped him up with wide eyes and attempted to untie his skates for him. Hux did not say a word. 

“There’s an ice machine in the locker rooms for that,” said Rose, pointing to where he had hit his head. He had landed on the ground thankfully, not the hard metal bleachers.

Hux thought that not accepting the ice and the opportunity to disappear would have been extremely foolish. He hurried to make a quick exit with the remains of his pride. 

On his way to the locker rooms, Hux ducked inside an open janitor’s closet when he heard voices coming from down the hallway. He recognized them as belonging to Snoke and Ben Solo. They had been echoing in his mind lately. Hux had no desire to interact with them this morning, so far removed from anyone who might provide him with a quick escape and a reason to speak with casual politeness.

It was far too early in the morning to be humiliated.

Instead, he waited until they passed. He was able to see them for a second between the open door. The two of them walked past, leaving the locker room presumably. Hux considered himself extremely lucky to have not entered the locker room to find them both waiting for him.

He wondered, as he took the ice he didn’t really need and cleaned himself up in a mirror, if he should do as Phasma asked and watch part of Ben’s practice. He certainly didn’t want to open himself up to further interaction with either Ben or Snoke. That close call had been close enough for Hux, but Phasma had put a lot of effort into trying to trick him into seeing Ben. Perhaps he should reward her failed attempt at deceit. 

And he couldn’t deny his own curiosity. Of course he had wondered what kind of skater Snoke would transform Ben into, what kind of skater Hux would have been had he not ceded the competition. Ben had skated beautifully that night. Under the right coach, he could be something truly great.

Walking over to a secluded spot outside the ice seemed almost inevitable. He wondered if he hadn’t scoped out a spot out of sight subconsciously, knowing on some level that he needed to see this. 

Hux wasn’t prepared for what he saw. 

Even from a distance, Hux could see how much weight Ben had shed. It scared him. Phasma had been right, he recalled a time in his life when he stared into a mirror and saw a skeleton. The rest of his symptoms from years ago were evident in Ben’s skating as well. He skated sloppily, flubbing his jumps, emerging from spins dizzy, and failing ever so slightly to keep up with his music. 

The practice session only lasted about a half hour. It was clear that Ben was hardly present and that Snoke was only too eager to pick apart every flaw in Ben’s skating. He barked orders at Ben like a drill sergeant and Ben took it without a word. It was as though he saw Ben as some up-jumped junior skater and not the world-class prodigy he was. It was shocking to see he thought it was acceptable to treat any human being in such a way.

The change in Ben’s skating was startling, but what was worse, was the way Snoke reacted to each time Ben messed up. For every failing, Ben had to start again. For every missed jump, Snoke shouted about another repetition being added to their suicide runs at the end. At one point, Snoke walked out onto the ice and shouted at Ben and Ben stood there to take his abuse. His head hung limp as he let Snoke tell him what a failure he was. Hux flinched when his own name came up in the assault. 

Hux could hardly watch as Ben began his suicides. His powerful legs had almost nothing left in them. He heroically made his way through four lengths of the rink, pushing himself with obvious desperation. It was the most of that famous passion Hux had seen from him throughout the training session. His fire was the only thing keeping him on his feet and when that ran out, the teeth of his skate hit the ice and threw him forward onto his chest. 

Hux winced and turned away. The fall sounded like it hurt. He steeled himself and looked over to Snoke, expecting to find some small amount of pity in the coach’s face. 

“Enough!” shouted Snoke. “I’m done with you. Go. I’ll see you this afternoon in the gym.”

Ben didn’t try to argue. His expression hardly changed. He picked himself off of the ice. Every move he made seemed to hurt. He dutifully turned and skated off of the ice, heading towards Hux. Snoke had headed out the main doors already, kicking a garbage can in anger as he left.

Hux realized his mouth was hanging open and shook himself. This sort of coaching wasn’t unheard of. Hell, Hux had put himself through it all on his own. He had rarely seen the results of it up close, on someone who wasn’t himself. It was devastating. 

It took longer than it should have to realize that his and Ben’s paths were going to collide. In a few seconds, Hux needed to decide whether to hide once again or step forward to say something. He hesitated a second too long, and the choice was taken from him. Ben’s eyes narrowed when they met Hux’s. There was a tired moment of recognition, before dull anger.

Hux recovered quickly and couldn’t stop himself from saying something. “What happened to you?” asked Hux. The words came out softer than he’d intended. His hard feelings towards Ben Solo remained, but it was hard to see him like this.

Ben Solo had always stood out in competition with his strong, intimidating figure, all broad shoulders, chest, and muscles. He cut a singular figure on the ice and amidst a crowd of skaters that looked more like Hux. It had hurt him in his first few years of skating, but in recent years, he had come into his own with vibrancy and an original style born out of that difference. This man was a completely different person.

He had seen Ben Solo on the ice just now, but up close the change in him was even more startling. The Ben Solo Hux saw in front of him had none of the strength and individuality that made him great. He looked… broken.

Hux had endured his share of hard practices. There were times when he felt as though he’d been through hell and back, but this was different. Tough workouts are always followed by easier days. The body needs time to forgive punishing workouts or else it punishes you by failing to perform. What Hux saw wasn’t improvement. This was dangerous.

Tired legs can’t carry a skater through jumps. Ben Solo was more likely to injure himself than to become a better skater. Snoke was feeding off of Ben’s drive to succeed, but perhaps he couldn’t see that he was doing more harm than good, and Ben seemed too stubborn to quit.

“What are you doing here?” 

“I came to practice,” Hux said, goading him.

“So it’s just a coincidence that you’re here at my rink?” Ben snorted. “What are you really doing here, spying?”

“The coincidence is that my best friend in the whole world happens to live ten minutes away.” Hux looked him up and down, he took in the sight of his tired, defeated form with pity. “If you must know, Phasma asked me to come. I happened to catch some of your practice.” He left it up to Ben to interpret whatever he wanted into those words.

Ben’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t you have a practice of your own to get to? Oh, that’s right, you don’t have a coach, do you?”

The pity inside Hux vanished in an instant. If Ben wanted to kill himself with Snoke, the asshole probably deserved it.

"I'm leaving," said Hux. He didn’t have to take this. "Good luck with Snoke.” He gave Ben an exaggerated glance up and down. “You're going to need it.”

But Ben stopped him before he went too far. Pain in Ben's ankle flared up as he nearly tripped himself to prevent Hux from leaving. With his broad shoulders, there was really no way Hux could leave with Ben between himself and the door. 

"What are you doing?" Hux tried to push him out of the way.

“Wait.” That was all he could manage at first. Perhaps his ankle had reminded him how to be a person again. Perhaps he was too tired to keep up his anger. “I shouldn’t have said that. God, I used to look up to you, you know?”

Hux raised an eyebrow but was not moved. The confession sounded like something born of exhaustion. He kept an arm out to balance Ben in case he started to look like he was about to fall again. “What are you talking about?” His voice was flat.

"You were my hero when I was in the juniors. Like a skating god. I never once thought of you as someone human. Even now you do everything to keep people from getting too close.”

So far, Hux was unimpressed with this attempt at apology. “Look, Ben, are you alright?” He wasn’t sure how to say this to Ben. It was obvious Ben wasn’t alright, but perhaps he didn’t realize how bad off he really was? “Ben, you must see that Snoke is killing you slowly. Ben, I’ve been through this before I know exactly what you’re going through-”

Ben was quiet for a moment. “Snoke is making me a better skater.”

“He isn’t. You must see that.”

“Why do you care either way? Your career is finished, why do you need to ruin mine?” Ben’s temper was all over the place. He swung from angry to calm to suspicious in the space of minutes and Hux wasn’t sure if he could keep up.

"How do you live like that?" Ben asked, caught somewhere between taking another jab at Hux and genuine curiosity. "You cut off everyone in your life and for what?"

Hux gave him an icy glare. "I left them all behind so that I could be the best in the world. If that's not important to you maybe you should go back to hockey."

Ben looked like he'd been hit. "That's not what I meant..."

"We all know you can't make it without having your hand held the entire time, whether it's by Snoke or your parents or that old coach of yours. If you can't handle making sacrifices, you don’t deserve to be the best in the world."

Hux shouldn’t have said any of that. Ben didn’t need to hear about making sacrifices. He didn’t have many more sacrifices to make. Anger was rolling off of Hux in waves but Ben couldn’t help himself. “You still want that? To prove that you're the best in the world?"

Hux stared at him as though he was speaking in tongues. "Is that even a question?" 

There was a long moment of silence between them. Ben had a question on his lips, but he wasn't sure if he could bring himself to ask it.

"Hux," The words tripped and fell out of his mouth. “I know why you’re here.”

“You couldn’t possibly,” said Hux. ”I’m here by coincidence.” He heard the ridiculousness of his words only as an afterthought. Hux couldn’t be sure whether it was coincidence or not anymore. Phasma had tricked him into being here, but he had decided to stay. It didn’t matter very much anymore. 

"You’re here to be my coach."

They stood there in silence for a while. Hux's hand was frozen on Ben's chest. It slowly fell back down to his side.

"You already have a coach," said Hux in a low voice. "You won him."

"We both know that I can do better. I think you could help me."

In a different situation, Ben would have been very proud to have made Hux gape like that. He was truly at a loss for words. Hux couldn’t even manage enough syllables to stutter.

"That's... true," He began slowly. "After watching your practice, I can tell he is not the right fit for you. Truthfully, I'm not sure he's the right fit for anyone. A few more months with that man and you would be out for a season with an injury, maybe even the for the rest of your career. But…” As he spoke he picked up speed and energy, only to come to a halt. He looked back at Ben as though realizing again who he was talking to. “Snoke can make you a phenomenal skater. Are you sure you know what you're even asking?"

"Does that mean you're considering it?"

"Of course not," sputtered Hux. "I have my own season to think about, I can't do both-"

"You wouldn't," said Ben.

"Is this your way of taking care of the competition? Making sure you don't have to face me in the Grand Prix?"

Ben shook his head. "You haven't started to prepare either of your programs yet. You're stalling. If you had the motivation or the inspiration to keep going you would."

Hux wondered if those weeks of inaction were truly that obvious, but the thought didn’t distract him from the panic rising in his chest. "If I stop skating now, I'll never be able to come back."

"Only if you keep listening to people who tell you that, even if that person is yourself."

His heart was racing and his breath was beyond his control. All of the anxiety that had kept him locked away in his apartment, everything that he had yet to speak to Phasma about had risen to the surface. He was staring in the face and was completely paralyzed. 

Hux thought he might cry.

“I don’t know the first thing about coaching,” Hux said. The words hardly meant anything as they came out of his mouth.

“I don’t think that’s true.”

“I would have to move here to Los Angeles.” Hux knew he sounded listless, just making excuses now.

“I’m sure Phasma wouldn’t mind a roommate.”

“We hate each other,” said Hux, his eyes widening as he seriously began to consider what they were talking about. “We’ve fought almost every time we’ve spoken to each other.”

“We’re not fighting now. And before, now we were enemies, competitors. Even Snoke tried to set us against each other.” Ben stood up a bit taller now. He held out his hand to Hux. “What if we gave working together a try?”

Hux stared at the hand outstretched before him and caught a glimpse of something far beyond him. A future stretching out into the distance, like the fog and darkness he had known before had suddenly been swept away. This was insane. This whole arrangement had come about too suddenly and neither of them was prepared to make this kind of life-altering decision. And yet…

Didn’t it make sense? Wasn’t this the perfect solution to everything that had been plaguing Hux for weeks now? 

“Hux, will you be my coach?”

Moving forward meant taking risks. Skating had taught him that. For once in his life, the road ahead wasn’t perfectly clear. Hux had a choice to make. Ben had offered him a light in the darkness, a flash that illuminated everything just for a moment. In order to see the rest, he was going to have to step out into the darkness, feel his way along, and take a leap of faith. 

He was ready to leap.

“I will.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just barely fulfilling my promise to have this up by Friday. Thank you so much as always for reading and for your comments and kudos. I've spent so long on this fic that each one really does mean a lot to me. Next chapter will be the final chapter and already I'm sad to say goodbye to this AU. I've already started thinking about a one-shot I want to write based on these skaters.
> 
> My goal is to have the next and final chapter up by the 31st. Fingers crossed that I'll have it done in time. 
> 
> Thanks again!


	5. Chapter 5

Ben never envisioned leaving Snoke. He had followed Snoke halfway around the world twice to train with him. He had left his family and friends behind. He had been dedicated to a fault. In all that time, no matter how much pain he suffered, Ben never imagined quitting.

If put in some strange set of circumstances that forced to picture leaving Snoke, he never would have imagined the fight Snoke would put up to try and get him to stay.

“You don’t know what you’re doing!” Snoke roared. “If you stop now, you’ll never amount to anything.” 

Having never given the situation a thought before, Ben found himself unable to think of a better way to do this. Texting would have been an insult to the weeks they had spent together and Snoke would never have taken him seriously. Telling him at practice would have made Ben seem weak, as though he had finally cracked under the strain of their rigorous training. Here, at Snoke’s house, he wanted to appear calm and reasonable. And Ben felt as though he was very calm and reasonable as he spoke to his coach and told him why he wanted to leave.

He couldn’t help it if his now-former coach had other ideas.

“I always knew you were weak! I never should have taken on a loser like you. Your career was over before it ever began!”

Ben almost thought he should thank Snoke for making this severance much easier than it could have been.

He took a few steps back down Snoke’s front stairs, giving himself one last look at the man he had dedicated the last three weeks of his life to.

“I’m sorry it had to end this way,” he said, trying not to smile. “But I know this is what’s best for me.”

Snoke looked as though he was about to launch into another tirade about Ben’s lack of talent, especially in the face of Ben’s tone. He swallowed it though, almost literally biting his tongue to stop the words from forming. 

“What are you going to do now? Crawl back to your uncle and beg him to train you? He’ll never take you back. Not after everything you’ve done.”

Ben shrugged and tried to appear less nervous about his future than he actually felt. “I have a new coach.” Ben blinked in the face of Snoke’s uproarious laughter. “Something funny?”

Snoke brushed away tears forming at the corners of his eyes. “A new coach?” He heaved a heavy sigh. “If you wanted to throw your life away, there are cheaper and easier ways to do it, boy.”

Ben shook his head and turned to walk down the driveway. “Have a nice life,” he called. 

He wondered if he imagined the sound of Snoke spitting on the ground behind him, but decided that he didn’t care.

Ben returned to his empty apartment. He sat on his bed with his dog curled up at his side. He looked out of his window at the sun setting outside and came as close as he ever did to praying. 

Tomorrow’s practiced needed to go well. His relationship with Hux needed to go well. He needed to prove Snoke and everyone else wrong. Above all else, he still needed to become the skater he knew he could be. 

After all of the ups and downs of the last three weeks, of the last season, that one wish remained constant. He was going to become the best skater in the world and he needed Hux’s help.

Ben met Hux at a cafe later that day. He had never been to this one before nor had he known it existed. When he saw Hux sitting at a table with a cup of water in front of him, Ben assumed Phasma must have suggested the place to him. 

“How did it go?” Hux asked as Ben sat down across from him.

Ben shrugged. It had gone about as well as could be expected.

“You seem alright,” said Hux after scrutinizing him for a moment. 

“It’s done. That’s what matters.”

“Agreed.” Hux’s tone was business-like but nervous. “Onto what comes next.”

They began to outline the next few months in broad strokes. Where they would live, where they would skate, what their training sessions would look like, how and when Ben would begin to compete. Ben felt his chest open up and his breathing become easier as they laid it all out together. His encounter with Snoke this morning had shaken him more than he had realized. Being able to talk about something else, something constructive and beneficial, was a relief.

He sensed that Hux felt the same way. The older man had been anxious as he sat there waiting for Ben to arrive and he had been nervous when they first began to speak. Slowly, he became more eager. He had plenty of opinions and ideas for how this was all going to work. 

“At the moment, I’m staying on Phasma Christie’s couch. While I know that she would let me stay as long as I need to, I would like to get out of her hair as soon as possible.”

“I’m stuck in LA for the next two months with my lease.”

“I’m sure you want to get out of here as soon as possible.”

Ben thought about leaving LA. He had only been here for a few weeks, but he had enjoyed his time here. For the first time in his life, he was wholly out of reach of his parents and his family. He had none of their connections, none of their support. It had been scary at first, but also incredibly freeing. Part of him missed New York City, missed the park he walked his dog to every morning, missed the old man who ran the bodega down the block, missed the smell of the halal carts parked on the sidewalk near his rink. But LA was not without its charms either. Hux likely assumed that he wanted to leave as soon as possible due to Snoke and he was right, but Ben didn’t want to turn his back on the possibility of making a life for himself here. 

“I’m not sure,” said Ben. He hadn’t meant to. This meeting was meant to set down plans for their shared future and he wasn’t being much help. “My last apartment was in New York. I suppose we could head back there when my lease is done here.”

Ben wasn’t sure he was ready to put himself so close to his parents and Luke once again, but it would be nice to head home. Part of him really wanted to stick it out and put in the effort to make Los Angeles feel like home. Perhaps another time. 

Hux nodded. “I’m more familiar with New York, myself, but it really depends on where you feel most comfortable.”

They might need to revisit that particular detail in a few weeks, but for now, Ben could live with it. The two of them planned to meet tomorrow during the public ice session at the rink for their first official practice together. Ben wanted to protest, to tell Hux that he was ready to start now.

“What should I do in the meantime, coach?” 

Hux looked him over dubiously. Ben wished he would stop doing that. “I think it’s best if you take the day off. Eat something, anything, and get some rest.”

“I’m fine,” Ben insisted. “I didn’t ask you to be my coach so that you could baby me.”

“I don’t plan to.” Hux crossed his arms. “Our training won’t focus on killing you slowly the way Snoke has been doing, but don’t expect me to go easy on you. This will be hard work just as it has always been.”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

They went their separate ways after that, once they had a plan in place. Hux was going to see about scheduling more private time at the rink and Ben was under coach’s orders to take it easy. 

The next morning, Ben woke up early and went for a run. He felt jumpy, full of nervous energy and had no outlet for it. When he returned, he attempted to make a smoothie and force it down but his stomach would not cooperate. He had failed to fulfill his new coach’s first instructions and he knew it would show by the time their ice time rolled around. Ben began to hope Hux would go easy on him. 

The rink looked the same as it always did when he walked through its doors in the early afternoon, but it felt different. He carried a different kind of anxiety with him today, the kind that comes from stepping into the unknown. Rose smiled at him from the counter just as she always did. She was sweet and friendly, but Ben wasn’t naive enough to believe that she hadn’t immediately noticed Snoke’s absence and the peculiar time of day the moment he had walked through the door. If Ben hadn’t garnered a reputation around the rink as being temperamental, he would have been peppered with all sorts of questions the moment Rose’s shift ended. 

Hux was already on the ice by the time Ben locked away his things and laced up. He was skating slow, experimental laps around the rink, mingling at times with the other skaters. Light from the wide windows turned his hair a golden, copper color. Ben wasn’t sure if it was the sunlight or his imagination, but his coach seemed happier than he had ever seen him, as he skated loose circles on the ice. He almost hated to disturb Hux after seeing him like this.

“Right on time,” Hux remarked, coming out of his reverie all on his own. 

Due to their last-minute scheduling, there wasn’t enough room on the ice for Ben to take Hux through the beginnings of the short program he had started to work on with Snoke. Instead, their first practice consisted of the basics. Hux had him perform each element in his arsenal. Then, Hux had Ben do it again, and again. Even something as simple as a single toe loop was repeated so that Hux could judge his form, critique him slightly, and have him do it once more.

Honestly, Ben found the rudimentary nature of the practice incredibly boring. He did his best to adjust to Hux’s critiques but found that mentally, he didn’t believe there was very much in his technique that needs to change.

He began to have his first round of doubts about Hux’s coaching skill when Hux asked him for a fifth time to perform a triple axel. The practice had been light so far, but as they moved into jumps with more rotations, Ben found the muscles in his legs tiring. The pain and effort was nothing compared to his practices with Snoke, but he knew his technique was about to decline. 

Ben skated back to Hux for his next round of corrections. He couldn’t keep his lips from falling into the perpetual scowl his mother had never failed to criticize. 

“Surely someone has told you to keep your trail leg straight as you come out of your jumps,” Hux told him. Ben couldn’t tell if it was the length of the practice or Hux’s attempt at being a serious, professional coach that kept the man’s voice so toneless. 

“Yeah,” Ben said. “I’m usually more concerned about making the jump in the second half of my program than on how pretty it looks.” He knew his jumps didn’t look bad. Hux was fishing for something to criticize.

Hux arched an eyebrow. “Perhaps you should worry more about looking pretty than falling flat on your face.”

Ben thought back to his World Championship performance and the encounter his face had made with the ice that day. His concerns didn’t seem unwarranted. 

“Right,” Ben said, prepping to go again regardless of whatever Hux thought he knew.

He nearly stumbled when he felt someone’s hand on his arm. Ben turned to see that Hux had stopped him. 

“Don’t shrug me off.” His voice was tightly controlled. Ben pulled his arm out of Hux’s reach and returned to his starting mark once again. This time Hux let him.

Ben continued skating through each of his elements. He followed the triple axel with a triple toe loop, a triple lutz, and the four quad jumps he was capable of: toe loop, salchow, lutz, and flip. Only the quadruple axel consistently evaded him. Luke had never pushed him too hard on it. No one in the history of skating had ever managed it in competition. Ben had never spoken it out loud to anyone before, but he wanted to be the first one. 

He could feel Hux’s eyes on him, following him through every move he made. After so much repetition, there was only so much that could be said. Rather than repeat himself, Hux just stood there and watched. He told Ben to go again, he corrected small things here and there, but for the most part, they remained on the same wavelength. Ben knew when he had not performed a jump up to his own standards and he was rarely surprised when Hux made him go again. 

After an hour and a half of practice, Ben’s legs were burning and he was soaked in sweat. According to the routine they had established, he still had his quad flip to put before Hux’s inspection. 

Ben took a deep breath, wiped the sweat from his brow, and began to skate. Slowly and carefully he picked up speed on the ice. Part of him wanted to close his eyes and throw his whole body and soul into the jump, but he kept his eyes open, mindful of the size of the rink and the other patrons still on the ice. 

He caught a glimpse of Hux watching him. His coach’s blue-green eyes were wide as he leaned back against the wall of the rink. 

Ben flew around the turn once more, finally reaching the right position with enough speed. He spun himself around, moving from skating forward to backward. In an instant, he threw his left foot down and took off. From there it was memory and feeling. He knew what foot to land on, he remembered how it should feel to land, where each and every body part needed to be. 

By the strength of his training, he managed to come through the jump still standing upright. After a moment of consideration, he knew that his trail leg and his arm position didn’t look half bad either. 

When he looked back to Hux, Ben couldn’t read his expression. His jaw had dropped for only a second, but his eyes betrayed something beyond the professional exterior he had attempted to project all afternoon. Ben desperately wanted to know what he was thinking. 

Hux played at his lower lip, turning over what he was about to say. “You did good today,” he said. “Really good. I think that’s enough for now though, don’t you?”

Ben was thankful for the praise, but he wasn’t so sure that they were done yet. “You don’t want to see me do a quad axel?”

Snoke had made him try it. Over and over again in what now seemed like a twisted version of an ordinary practice. Ben had fallen, again and again, never quite achieving all of the rotations or managing to stick the landing. He assumed that Hux would want to see him try as well, if only so that he could criticize Ben.

Instead, Hux arched an eyebrow. “Can you do a quad axel?”

“Well-”

“I didn’t think so.” Hux opened his mouth as though he were about to say something else, but he held his tongue and shook his head. “I think you’ve got enough to work on without throwing the impossible in as well.”

“I can do it. I know I can,” Ben insisted. “I will be the first.”

Hux did not contradict him. He gave Ben another one of those up and down glances where he seemed to see all of Ben even the parts Ben didn’t want him to see. This inspection wasn’t as unwelcome as the ones that had come before it. Hux looked upon him more kindly this time and seemed to appreciate him in a way that he had not. A smile graced his coach’s thin lips. 

“I believe you,” he said. “But not today.”

Hux began skating towards the exit, assuming Ben was following. Ben wasn’t sure why he lingered. He was flattered that Hux believed in him, but he remained dissatisfied. He wanted to be pushed and challenged. He wanted to fall flat on his face so that it meant he had a smaller chance of falling tomorrow. 

Ben began skating almost without thinking. The movement had been ingrained in him through today’s practice and his years of training. He knew what he was about to do and he wasn’t sure if he would be able to do it just yet. There was every chance that he would fall and fail to make the rotations just as he always did. But Ben felt like he needed to try. He wanted Hux to see what he was made of. He wanted his coach to understand the depth of his ambition. 

The cold air in the rink played with his hair like a cool breeze as he reached the speed he needed. He had no idea if Hux was even watching, but Ben hoped he was. This was all for nothing if he didn’t see. 

Ben spread his arms for balance. The hardest part of the axel was the fact that it was entirely about muscle. There was no lift from the toe pick to get you off the ground. In order to get the four and a half rotations, you needed height and for that, you need strength, something Ben wasn’t so sure he had at the moment.

But he was going to do this anyway. 

This time, Ben did close his eyes. He knew every condition had been met: speed, placement, position. Now it was up to him. 

He swung around and leaped. 

Ben could feel the rotations. He had enough experience to know how that felt, even when he was spinning too fast to tell. He had done enough, technically speaking, but achieving the required number of rotations wasn’t typically his problem. His problem had always been the landing. The coaches, the spectators, and the even the judges look at how many rotations a skater has completed in their jump. The rotations are what gives a jump the elite distinction of being a coveted quad. 

Ben has always been too big, too muscular. The strength to jump that high wasn’t as impossible for him. He needed the ability to control that strength and actually manage to complete the jump. Control was something he had always struggled with. 

His skate touched down on the ice blade first. A good sign to be sure. Ben opened his eyes then, the whole world seemed to come to life in slow motion. 

He extended his trail leg into an arabesque and spread his arms out once more. For one beautiful moment, Ben thought he had actually done it. 

And then his left leg wobbled. 

His right hand touched the ice first, trying desperately to regain some semblance of balance. His body was still careening and the ice was solid and constant beneath him. The rest of his body followed his hand down to the ice. It was one of his more graceful falls. 

The world rushed back to him all at once as he kneeled there on the ice. His breath came out in a few deep pants as he stared down at the ground beneath him. Ben decided he didn’t care anymore if Hux had watched him or not. He had been so close to completing that jump, something no one else in the world had ever managed to do, and he was proud. 

Ben picked himself up, noting absently that a group of seven-year-old girls were staring at him and whispering. He looked up at Hux who had paused to watch Ben before leaving the rink. His mouth had not fallen open in shock and awe as it had before. His furrowed brow made him appear caught between anger and exasperation. Hux couldn’t believe what he had just watched Ben do and for now, that was enough for Ben. 

Their practice ended with an announcement over the loudspeaker telling the skaters that they needed to clear the ice in order to prepare for the next session. The two of them waited politely for waist-high children to toddle their way off of the ice first before making their way to the locker room. 

“You’re an idiot,” said Hux as they made their way to the locker room. “I can’t believe you did that.”

Ben couldn’t believe he had almost done it either, but he knew that Hux meant something slightly different.

“I told you I wanted to be the first to complete a quad axel in competition and I think I’m ready to do it this season.”

Hux scowled. “And I told you that you weren’t ready and you decided to disobey me.” Ben squared his shoulders, ready for a fight. “I’m meant to be your coach, Ben, you need to listen to me.”

“You’re supposed to be my coach, Hux. You need to listen to me as well. I’ve never had a coach that really listened to me, not Luke, not Snoke, not even my parents. If we want this to be any different, something needs to change.” 

Ben had never considered his coaches like that before, but it was true. He felt trapped by Luke because he refused to listen when Ben told him he felt like he could be doing more. He suffered under Snoke because coached through sergeant’s orders that were meant to be followed and not questioned. And his parents…

Well, that was something he had always thought about his parents. Usually, it tended to stem from the teenage boy that still lurked inside him and said things like ‘they just don’t understand’. They didn’t understand and that was because they had always refused to listen. 

Armitage frowned but eventually he held out his hand to Ben. “How about this, I promise to listen as long as you do the same. If either of us feels the other is not holding up their end of the bargain, I’m sure we won’t have any problem calling them out on it.”

Ben found this agreement a bit formal, but his scowl lessened. He took Hux’s hand and shook it. If he could have raised an eyebrow he might have. 

“Is this a promise not to attempt any more difficult jumps?”

“This is a promise not to attempt them until I say you can,” amended Hux. “And I suppose this is a promise that I will let you do it eventually. When you’re ready.”

Ben wasn’t sure he could wait that long, but this promise of theirs was a start. 

After practice, the two of them went back to their separate apartments with a friendly wave and a half smile. 

Ben wanted to believe that their first practice together went about as well as it could. Nothing had gone wrong, necessarily, but he couldn’t tell if this was the right fit for him or not. Hux was cold and distant, stepping into the role of coach with certainty if not ease. Ben felt that Hux knew what he was doing, he knew how to coach another skater, but he didn’t know how to coach Ben. At least, not yet. 

At Hux’s request, Ben took an ice bath after practice, lowering himself gingerly into the water and trying not to whine about it too much. It had been months since his last one and he had never been very good about taking them to begin with. He was always far more grateful for a nice hot shower than the torture of a frigid ice bath.

Still, he did have to admit that he was beginning to feel better. His ankle still complained at times and his muscles were still tight as bowstrings, but he was starting to feel stronger thanks to a few days of rest and Hux’s insistence that he take better care of himself. 

After two weeks away from Snoke, Ben thought he was more alert and focused than he had felt in weeks. The difference in the mirror was minimal, but he knew his ribs were showing less than they had a week before; the startling loss of weight was nearly impossible to maintain with a proper diet. It had been difficult at first to break himself of the habits he had learned from Snoke. He had rationalized every poor decision with the mantra that it would benefit him in the long run: don’t eat that, you’ll be a better skater if you lose weight; keep going, you’ll be a better skater if you ignore the pain; don’t talk back, you’ll be a better skater if you listen to everything Snoke says. 

He had ignored all of the warning signs his body had been trying to send him for so long, he had almost forgotten what they felt like. It took him a few days to remind himself that he should be hungry and that he needed to stretch and sleep. The first few meals felt wrong on a physical level as well as an emotional one. His first meal had been a salad and chicken breast and his stomach rebelled as soon as he had finished. He managed to hold himself together while clutching the countertop of the sink in his bathroom. The triumph over his own body didn’t make him feel stronger, not at first.

Ben taught himself to eat again and to sleep. Hux taught him some yoga and they attended a few classes together. Ben had never attempted yoga before, for fear that he might be just as bad at it as he was at ballet. By the end of their first session, even Hux was impressed by how stable and flexible he was.

“That was really the first time you’ve done that?” Hux asked as they rolled up their mats. Ben thought he might have been imagining it, but he could swear that Hux looked impressed. 

“Really.” Ben was feeling quiet after their first class. It had centered him in a way that up until that point, only skating and competition had ever been able to do. Hux suggested that they go again the next week and Ben tried not to sound too eager at the prospect. 

The two of them were starting to get along better. Ben really thought they were. What they had was nothing beyond the relationship between coach and student and Ben was learning to be alright with that. Hux had a tendency to keep him at a distance for the most part when they weren’t at practice, but there were moments when they were together where Ben could almost pretend that they were friends. 

During practices, Hux maintained a superior, authoritative tone like the one he had used during their first session together. Ben resented it but said nothing. If Hux needed to appear professional and uptight in order to coach him, Ben would let him for as long as he could stand. 

The practices improved marginally after the first. In a week, they were able to schedule more private ice time and begin building Ben’s programs. 

One week turned into two. After three weeks of training with Hux, Ben was beginning to fall into a familiar pattern. They practiced almost every day. They met for yoga class on Monday nights each week. They both worked shifts at the rink in order to supplement their meager incomes. Ben still couldn’t say for sure that he had improved as a skater under Hux’s tutelage, but he supposed that anything was better than enduring Snoke. 

After their evening ice time, he and Hux debriefed in the locker room.

“Today went well,” said Hux. “Your stamina is improving.”

It was still hard for Ben to tell if he was making progress, though. All of his usual margins were gone. He couldn’t use pain as a marker. He had no way of comparing his current performance to one’s past. He couldn’t ask an outsider to compare. All he had was Hux and trust.

“By this time next week, I think you’ll be able to crack that quad axel you’ve been dreaming of.”

Ben’s eyes widened. He had some idea that he was getting stronger, didn’t think his progress had been that substantial.

“You really think so?”

Hux nodded. “You’ve had it in you for a while now. By next week, you’ll have the strength.”

Hux refused to rise to Ben’s level of enthusiasm upon hearing that news. His eyes did not meet Ben’s as he unlaced his skates and stowed them away.

“I had almost given up on it,” Ben said. “I didn’t think you’d actually agree to it.”

“I made you a promise. You’ve kept your end of the deal, now it’s time to keep mine.”

That Friday, they received Ben’s Grand Prix assignments. He was scheduled to compete at Skate America and the Rostelecom Cup. Back in the locker room of the local ice rink, Ben and Hux discussed the news. Hux passed back and forth while Ben laced up his skates and tried to ignore his coach. He couldn’t imagine why assignments of all things would make Hux nervous. 

It was June, the air conditioning in the locker room was malfunctioning and Ben was already sweating. A bead of sweat ran down his neck and he swiped it impatiently away. They had a routine to get to and a finite amount of ice time. He didn’t have time for whatever panic attack Hux had worked himself into. He caught something about Skate America being the first event of the Grand Prix and something about Hux’s father.

Ben took off his skates and went over to Hux. He placed one hand on Hux’s shoulder, marveling for a moment at the difference in size. Hux stilled immediately under his touch.

“I don’t understand what you’re so worried about,” said Ben. “You knew these assignments were coming soon anyway. What does it matter where I compete?”

Hux’s face tightened in the middle. “It’s not about where you compete…” he said, trying to put to words the dozens of fears he had. “Skate America is the first event of the Grand Prix. It will be your debut. Rather, it will be my debut as your coach.”

“It was going to happen sometime in October or November anyway. Now we’ll get it over with sooner.”

“It isn’t about getting it over with, it’s about making the right impression.” Hux’s words bit back at him.

“We have four months to work on it. We have time.”

Hux’s face softened but his worries hadn’t dissipated yet. “What if it isn’t enough time? Four months is nothing, you know that.”

Ben realized he hated seeing Hux like this, raw and vulnerable, a completely different man from the one he had always looked up to. He squeezed Hux’s shoulder, wanting to do something more to comfort the man but not knowing how. 

Then Ben understood something. He didn’t hate the idea of Hux being something other than the skating hero Ben had always known. He hated seeing Hux upset. In fact, he loved getting to know Hux as a real person. He loved going to yoga with him each week. He loved seeing Hux in those tank tops and lycra pants. He loved skating with Hux and learning from him. He loved going to the supermarket to buy ‘real food, Ben, not just apples’ with Hux. He loved texting Hux late at night until Hux told him he needed to sleep. 

Hux was so different from how Ben had always pictured him and he was so much better too.

Having the man tied up with worry in front of him was almost unbearable. 

“It will be enough time. It’s not like we have to start from scratch.”

Every time Ben came up with a solution, Hux found another problem. “Four months will never feel like enough time and we have to move to New York in a week. Such a huge disruption in your training will be a disaster.”

“What if we didn’t move to New York?”

Hux frowned. “Ben, don’t be ridiculous, your family is there-”

“I don’t need them.”

“Your lease is almost up-”

“I’ll renew it.”

“I’ve overstayed my welcome on Phasma’s couch.”

“Then come stay on mine,” Ben felt confident enough to chuckle lightly. “Hux, we decided that we were in this together, no matter what, weeks ago. This is our first test. We’re ready for it.”

Hux stared at him, uncertain but wanting to believe Ben’s words. Ben didn’t know what else he could do to help Hux see that everything was going to be fine, really. Ben’s hand was still on Hux’s shoulder. Perhaps there was one thing he could do.

After everything they had discussed, their emotions running high, the shift upward to Hux’s jaw holding him still and careful was as easy as breathing. 

Hux saw and felt and knew what Ben was doing and let him. He let Ben lean in to close the space between them. He lifted his chin and was ready for it. The kiss began slowly, a quiet acceptance that yes, this has been growing for weeks and yes, I want this too. 

Then it shifted into something a little stronger. Hux steadied himself with his hands on Ben’s hips. Ben pressed Hux’s back against a row of lockers. The movement was too rough and he knew it, but Hux grinned against Ben’s lips and all was forgiven.

Hux kissed him, once and then once more for longer. Ben’s mind hadn’t fully come to terms with the reality of who he was kissing. For now, he wasn’t kissing the entirety of Armitage Hux, his history and legacy. He was kissing Hux, his coach and friend, and Hux was kissing him back. 

Every sound they made echoed through the empty locker room: the shift of Hux’s back against the locker, the scuffle of their feet against the floor. The smaller sounds echoed only in Ben’s mind: the quiet smack of their lips as they parted and came together once again, the short, lightly frustrated moan Ben made when Hux’s hand gathered in his hair, the sharp intake of breath Hux made when Ben kissed his neck. 

The sound of a shower turning on made Hux still in his arms. All at once this warm, pliable human being turned to stone and pulled away from him. Ben studied his face and watched the gentle haze of being kissed by someone you desperately wanted to be kissed by fade from Hux’s features. Sharp blue-green eyes turned to his. 

“What are we doing?” asked Hux. He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and tried to get as far away from Ben as he could without running. 

“What does it look like?” asked Ben, who couldn’t see anything wrong with what they had just done. In fact, he thought it was about time. 

“This can’t happen again. I’m your coach, Ben.”

Ben was angry and confused, but most of all, he had no idea how to make this better. He knew he should let Hux leave, that they should forget this had ever happened and try to move on with everything they were trying to accomplish here. But Ben couldn’t. If he knew anything else at the moment, he knew he would never be able to forget this. 

“I don’t think that matters.”

Hux looked at him desperately. He wanted Ben to move past this, to tell him that what they had just done had meant nothing because he found himself unable to do so himself. Hux rolled his lip in his teeth as though unable to forget the feeling of Ben on them. 

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” was all Hux said. 

Ben wanted to run after him, chase him down and call him a coward. He wanted to kiss Hux again. He wanted to text Hux, call him, and tell him how he really felt, even though Ben had never been good at that sort of thing. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to go back to the way things were before he had leaned in and done something he had wanted to do for years now. But Ben was sure that he wanted, needed to be with Hux right now, to this out before it went too far. 

He went back to his apartment alone instead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here I am almost three weeks later than I said I would be. Honestly though, this chapter is all the better for it. I knew where I wanted this chapter to go, but it took me far longer to get there than I thought. 
> 
> BUT here it is, I can't believe it's here and I'm excited to post the last chapter of this fic. I think I'll give myself a bit more time than usual to get the last chapter out. Hopefully, I'll have it up by the first. 
> 
> Thank you so much for your comments and kudos. I love this AU so much and I'm glad other people do too.
> 
> Thanks for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! This was meant to be last years Kylux Big Bang piece with [@venturescoutriddle](http://venturescoutriddle.tumblr.com/) on tumblr. I'll post the next chapter Friday and try to have the whole thing up by the 31st!


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